


Forever & Always

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe- Sex Work, Because I am a Mean Human, But read me out, I Don't Even Know, I swear I know how this looks, Its not one of those creepy sex work fics, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Politics Are Hard, Self-Indulgent, T'Challa Feels, T'Challa is lonely, Tony Feels, Tony is an Escort, plz, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-22 16:49:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7446577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The job wasn’t so bad, he liked sex and he was a great boyfriend as long as he wasn’t actually dating the person so clearly Tony was perfect for the occupation. </p><p>It had started out as a stupid decision he had made out of a fit of loneliness, and then out of an even bigger fit of loneliness T'Challa went and fell in love with the escort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is named after Taylor Swift's Forever & Always but the lyrics of the song really don't have a huge connection to he story, I just liked the way it looked on paper because I'm a vapid, shallow asshole. 
> 
> Now, on to the story, sex work features (though it will mostly be in mentions, the focus is on the pairing here) and I'd like to say this is pretty pro-sex work. Or at least how that's meant. Because there is no problem with sex work. Anyways, yeah, I have a billion things due for school right now and because I am a masochist at heart I started another story. Seriously. But I hope y'all enjoy! It (if all goes as planned) will be a relatively short story. If all goes as planned.

He never really pictured his life ending up here but hey, everyone had some weird things happen to them every once and awhile. Okay, so maybe not many of those people could say they accidentally became a sex worker but hey, Tony’s always been a little bit different. Besides, Sam was an awesome employer who cared about his employees, Tony really couldn’t have asked for anyone better. “Just give him the run down, you know the talk,” Sam says, giving Tony a very serious look, “and don’t scare him off. He’s adorable and that’s good for my business.”

“‘Course Sam, I know what I’m doing. I’m practically retiring age,” he jokes. Actually he was past retiring age, people didn’t tend to stay in this business long and he was on year four. He had to pay for his degree somehow though and he made good money doing this. The job wasn’t so bad, he liked sex and he was a great boyfriend as long as he wasn’t actually dating the person so clearly he was perfect for the job.

“You better not retire, I have some important clients that like you best,” Sam says, eyeing him warily, “now go make sure the new guy doesn’t run off.” Tony grins and gives Sam a mock salute, going off to do his job.

He finds the new guy looking pale and nervous in the employee room, “cheer up honey, you’ll do great,” Tony says, flopping down beside him.

The blonde looks up and Tony knows the look, the one people got before they realized they’re really good at this sort of thing. He hasn’t run into people who were _bad_ at this job, just people who couldn’t handle the amount of emotional labor that came with it. Playing out people’s fantasies isn’t an easy thing to do and people, in Tony’s experience, had one hell of a time separating themselves from their work. “I… how do you even know that?” he asks, his voice deeper than Tony was expecting. Clear, strong, yeah, this guy was going to be great at this.

“Ever done customer service?” he asks. The blonde nods, “then congratulations, you already know how to keep people happy. Ever had sex?” he asks and the blonde gives him a look, “what? We’re all going to know about your sex life soon anyways, might as well be up front. But I’m going to assume yes, most people your age have and if not market that shit, there’s a weird amount of people into the virgin thing. Point is you’ve already done all the things you need to do this job, now it’s a matter of fine-tuning. Learning about kinks, working out who likes what best, which fantasies work better with which clients, I advise keeping notes of repeat customers.”

Blondie tilts his head to the side, “notes?” he asks.

“Yeah. Customers want an authentic experience and most of them do more talking than fucking and you don’t want to go screwing up their fantasies. No one likes explaining things multiple times and people are assholes, every customer likes to think _they’re_ the one you’ll remember the most. That they’re special somehow. Newsflash, they aren’t, but don’t ever let them know that. Take notes, pay close attention, and bring up details from previous sessions. It’s like being friends with someone, except you have sex with them sometimes too and also they pay you. So pretty much nothing like being friends with someone but still, you get it.” Tony didn’t need notes but that was because he was a genius, he retained the information naturally. Other people weren’t as fortunate as he was in the memory department though so notes it was.

In the beginning he had had to work at that, remembering the details, because he usually didn’t care to learn but this job has made him a far better listener. His friends have noticed too, especially when he remembered their birthdays when he didn’t bother before. Now he knew the birthdays of a lot of important politicians, CEO’s, and various other important people. He knew a lot of things about a lot of people actually, information he just might find useful if he ever managed to get through his PhD. If he hadn’t had to work his ass off he probably would have completed the degree by now but sadly he was not rich.

New Guy nods, “okay, notes, got it. What else?” he asks, looking marginally less freaked out now. He was thawing to the job then, good, because Tony hated handholding the newbies and the ones that learned quick were his favorites. Like Wade, he jumped right in and he was an absolute natural at it.

“Don’t be surprised if they give you gifts, especially expensive ones. For that I’d advise you to know your client because some want you to act all humble and shit and others want you to keep your mouth shut and be appreciative. Mixing the two doesn’t tend to go well because it breaks the fantasy and grown men throwing tantrums is not a fun thing to deal with. Now, most clients are totally safe, no one wants an escort to ruin their political career- and you _will_ get enough information to ruin their career- but there’s always a few that are especially shitty. You sense something off just leave, Sam will understand, don’t get yourself into a shitty situation because you think you can handle it. Safety first,” Tony chirps in a tone too cheery for the subject. It wasn’t something he had experience with, thankfully, but he knew more than one person who’s been roughed up by an asshole client.

“Okay, makes sense. But what do you mean information that’ll ruin their careers? Wouldn’t they want to keep that information to themselves if it was so important?” Blondie asks.

Tony shrugs, “not really, they need a place to vent and we give that to them. Plus who’s going to believe a hooker? There’s a lot of security in that, at least to the client, so they feel more comfortable unloading that information on you. Most of this job is playing therapist with a dash of sex on the side, so long as you’re a good listener you’ll be fine. Oh, and I don’t know what way you might lean politically but leave it at the door. Politicians blow ass, we all know that, but we’re there to do our jobs, not to judge them for their shitty legislation.” As much as he’d like to judge the assholes that were pushing to essentially strip people of basic human rights. The homophobes that he dealt with always did floor him.

“Even the republicans?” Blondie says, wrinkling his nose.

“Even the republicans,” Tony confirms. Blondie looks like he swallowed an entire tree of lemons and Tony laughs. Steve- Tony learns his name later- picks up on things quick though, and his questions were good. He picked up on detail, had a sharp sense of humor, an easy smile, and despite his short stature he was sure to be a hit. Hell, he’d probably be a hit _because_ of his short stature. When Tony draws attention to his body Steve wilts a little and Tony thinks that’s a shame because the guy was gorgeous. Well, give him the right clients and he’ll learn to love that body of his. Tony had been self-conscious when he got into this business too and now his body was something he had full confidence in, probably the _only_ thing he had full confidence in.

He continues to dole out advice for how to do the job in the most effective way possible until finally Steve sighs, “how am I supposed to explain this to my mother?” he asks, looking sort of like a frightened bird.

“Hopefully you _don’t_ , can you even imagine how that conversation would go?” Tony asks, horrified at the thought.

“Well how do you do that, keep this from your parents and friends?” Steve asks.

“My parents are dead, so that solves that, and my friends are more preoccupied with their lives to care much about mine,” he says bluntly. Rhodey travelled a lot for his military job and Pepper was a high-powered lawyer, neither of them had a lot of time and that was convenient for him, really. It meant he could pick up more hours doing the phone sex thing, and it was a nice way to keep in contact with the regulars who travelled a lot.

Steve winces, “sorry,” he mumbles.

Tony shrugs, “no big deal, but if you want advice on that go find someone with a family. Which is… um… you’re going to have to ask someone who doesn’t work here.” Steve frowns a little but Tony changes the subject fast, uninterested in this guy’s pity. Besides, fake names were important but the name had to be something you called to. Tony had gone with his own name in part because Edward, his middle name, was horrible, and also because it was super generic. He had like seven Tony’s in any given class as a kid; he changed his last name instead because Stark _was_ distinctive. Steve goes with his middle name, Grant, which suits him more than his first name in Tony’s opinion.

*

Clients, as far as Tony was concerned, tended to fall into one of two camps. They were either pretty decent clients, sometimes even decent people, or they were absolutely horrible and he hated them. T’Challa was a whole new kind of client, the kind Tony would want to marry if not for the fact that this was his job, not his personal life. Plus, you know, not being the marrying type. They were playing games, Tony knew, T’Challa probably wasn’t nearly as caring and doting in his relationships- not that he had time for any- and Tony was playing out all of T’Challa’s fantasies. Not exactly the basis of a relationship but hey. Tony could pretend a little.

It was a dangerous thing, getting emotionally attached to the clients, but sometimes he couldn’t help it. Some of them had some sad lives, like Clint’s Phil, the dude was a _spy_ and all he wanted was a little love from someone who wasn’t his boss. Tony had dealt with him a time or two but Phil preferred Clint for whatever reason. Personally Tony didn’t see where the two connected, they were basically polar opposites, but hey, he wasn’t the one buying Clint’s time.

Some of the clients had dead significant others and had no clue how to move on, Tony got stuck with them a lot because apparently he was good with death as a subject. He knew the pain of losing someone you loved though so maybe that was why. Either way- playing therapist to people with dead spouses made him a killing, no pun intended.

T’Challa just happened to be a foreign king Tony was certain called Sam on a whim who also happened to be Tony’s favorite client. He was sweet, intelligent, attentive- all the things people would look for in a partner, which naturally made Tony wonder why the hell someone hadn’t managed to snatch this guy up. Time was certainly a factor; being king and dealing with international bullshit must be a pain in the ass, but Tony had a hard time believing that T’Challa wouldn’t make time. He obviously didn’t have the full picture, he shouldn’t even want the full picture, but he couldn’t help but want at least some of his clients happy with someone they weren’t paying to stick around.

When he gets to the hotel T’Challa’s staff does the usual thorough pat down and search. Tony has learned not to joke with the severe women by now, but every once and awhile he’d get one to do a kind of lip twitch thing that was sort of a smile and he prided himself on it. They could all probably use a day off to pet some cats but they were frighteningly loyal to their king so he highly doubted any of them would be taking a vacation… ever. He couldn’t be bothered to give a damn about half of the leaders of his nation so he admired their loyalty and clear care for their king. Cultural disconnect, he supposed, was what made them more loyal to T’Challa than Tony was to his own country’s leaders. That, and T’Challa wasn’t an asshole.

“You look like you’re thinking hard, that’s dangerous you know,” T’Challa tells him, a small smile gracing his features. Damn, Tony always forgot how gorgeous he was until he saw him again. Probably because he was so busy with his doctorate, his social life, work, and trying to keep up with his never-ending laundry pile. T’Challa’s bodyguards, they had a name not that Tony could remember it, glare at him because they weren’t done their inspection.

“Tell me about it, my roommate agrees after seeing the sorry state of our kitchen last night. Apparently thinking too hard about the food causes minor explosions,” he says. The detail is sort of personal, it was actually his lab that had suffered and Bruce that had been exasperated, not Rhodey, but he’s managed to screw up his kitchen enough times that it was mostly true. Besides, it matched with the rest of what T’Challa knew about him, some of it made up, some of it not.

It was weird that they were the same age, late twenties, and one of them was a hooker and the other was a _king_. Though T’Challa would tell him that a pursuit of education was a noble one and Tony was sure he actually thought that. At some point Tony wanted to start his own company but that was a pipe dream and he knew it. Best he could hope for was working in R &D at some high tech company, probably Hammer Industries, and the thought made him want to throw himself out a window.

There were a lot of things he’d rather do than work at HI, including scat and that was a hard no for him usually. His genius would be absolutely wasted with Hammer’s company, the only reason the idiot twerp was still successful was because he was riding on his daddy’s coat tails. Well, Tony wasn’t so lucky and even if he was Howard sucked and Tony wasn’t the sharing type, he wanted his own legacy.

“Always into trouble,” T’Challa says, clicking his tongue in mock disapproval.

Tony shrugs, “what can I say? It’s who I am as a person,” he jokes, earning an irritated look from the bodyguards, Dora Milaje, that’s what they were called.

“You would do well to keep that trouble to yourself,” the guard to his left says, eyeing him suspiciously.

“I will be fine, thank you, you can let him go now,” T’Challa says, amused. His guards are not amused and Tony knows better than to move. He did that once and got tackled much to T’Challa’s horror. He didn’t mind because his Dora Milaje were just doing their jobs and he could appreciate that, even if he didn’t appreciate the bruises. He did have to wonder at the weird lack of security though, he never saw more than two of the Dora Milaje at once and they weren’t arrogant, they couldn’t possibly think that two people was sufficient security. They all but strip searched him every time he showed up here, clearly they were interested in keeping their king safe so there must be more Dora Milaje kicking around somewhere, but Tony never seemed to see them. He should ask Clint to ask Phil about the Dora Milaje to see if he could glean any information on them.

“You may go,” the same guard that told him to keep his trouble to himself says and he flees the scene before they decide to further their inspection to the inside of his body. He didn’t doubt that they would and he was not going to test his limits.

“Sorry about that, they insist on being thorough,” T’Challa tells him, lips tipped up a bit.

“No worries, I can appreciate their loyalty. It’s sweet, how much they obviously care,” Tony says. T’Challa smiles wide, revealing perfect white teeth and crinkled eyes and Tony can’t help but smile back at such beauty. He lifts his hand to Tony’s face; gently brushing his fingers over Tony’s cheekbone and his eyes flutter shut, savoring the sensation. Usually this was an act, knowing how to tilt his head this way or that way, when do smile, gasp, react in whatever way was necessary.

With T’Challa things came far more naturally and instead of analyzing the situation and the client he just sort of went with it and to be fair it got him a semi-steady job. He wasn’t going to bitch about that, he had bills to pay and tuition to save for. That didn’t even include all of his supplies for his projects in the lab, but mostly JARVIS. His thesis supervisor thought he was nuts for the first year, wanting to build a semi-autonomous AI system, but after he got the basic coding done his ass of a supervisor had to admit he was awesome.

“Is your mind always going a mile a minute?” T’Challa asks and Tony huffs out a laugh, having become distracted by his own thoughts.

“You know it does, I’ve always got too many ideas and not enough time,” or money, but he doesn’t add that. By now he has perfected writing ‘give me money’ letters to rich dudes willing to fund college projects. It would probably be easier to get funding if people didn’t keep telling him his ideas were nuts and impossible. He could follow through on his ideas, he knew he could, but he needed the supplies and to get the supplies he needed the support and no one was willing to take the chance. It sort of stuck him in a bit of a bind.

“Well,” T’Challa says, bending to press a warm kiss to Tony’s forehead, “rest you mind a little and eat.” The moment is oddly intimate with T’Challa so close, hand pressed to Tony’s shoulder now and his chin resting on Tony’s head. Usually he resented how god damn short he was but in this situation it was pleasant, wrapped in T’Challa’s body heat. Plus the food was always awesome and on a ramen budget whatever his clients fed him was so much better than whatever mess he attempted to make at home. Rhodey appreciated him staying far away from the stove too, he was a terrible cook and things tended to explode.

*

It had started out as a stupid decision he had made out of a fit of loneliness, and then out of an even bigger fit of loneliness he went and fell in love with the escort. His father would scold him for this. It was difficult not to love Tony though, he was smart, quick witted, passionate, and of course he was stunning. T’Challa hadn’t had much time in his life to date, aside from a brief relationship in his teens he had not actually dated at all. Being king did not leave much time for him to find an acceptable partner so he had found a reliable escort service and ended up paired with Tony. He had no clue what to expect and right away Tony’s sharp humor and intelligence caught T’Challa’s attention. The Dora Milaje did not agree so they agreed to disagree so long as he did not interfere with them doing their jobs. Of course they grew to be fond of Tony too, even if they did not always let him see it. He supposed they had an image to keep up much like he did.

Now, of course, he was somewhat stuck in a situation he had no idea how to get out of. On one hand he was rather fond of Tony, probably in love with him if he allowed himself to be honest, and on the other Tony was doing a job. T’Challa’s feelings weren’t fair and he had no business pining away in the shadows while Tony provided the service he was paid to deliver. That did not mean he had any interest in cutting off the connection, if only for a little while. He could allow himself that, a few moments of happiness here and there before he cut ties and moved on. It was what was best for them both anyways, Tony didn’t need to deal with T’Challa’s muddled feelings and he should probably find a date he did not have to pay to keep in his company. Besides, they were playing a game here, for all he knew Tony wasn’t even Tony’s name. If he was smart that wasn’t his name.

He has debated on telling Tony about his feelings but he could not imagine the man would be happy about this situation. If he were in Tony’s position he would likely be horrified with himself for falling in love with something that was not real. And then he would run for the hills. Granted he supposed it was no more ethical to keep his feelings to himself but he was selfish. He had spent his whole life sacrificing things for others, giving everything he had to his people; he felt that he deserved a small thing to himself. This way Tony did not have to deal with feelings that should not be there and for a little while he could enjoy himself until things became more… complicated. If he became over invested, he told himself, he would walk away.

A small part of his brain that sounded suspiciously like his father was telling him he was already over invested but he was currently denying that part of his brain existed. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to think too hard,” Tony says, drawing T’Challa’s attention back to him.

He’s smiling, fork poised half way to his mouth and looking amused. T’Challa smiles back, “well, there is no shortage of things on my mind. Like tomorrow’s meeting, I _do_ wish American politics were not as… laughable as they are. It is difficult to hear people fret about who is using what bathroom and then proceed to have to take that person seriously. I loath diplomacy, I half wish my father had proceeded to keep the country closed to the world so I did not have to deal with the disaster that is the rest of the world. Honestly, the _Brexit_ , I could have slept in but no, I had to consult with world leaders,” he laments. He likely would not have slept in but he could have at least went on a jog instead of dealing with phone calls all day and night about an issue that did not concern him. Tony shakes his head, looking at his food with an odd look on his face, “what? Did I say something?” he asks, concerned.

“No no, I’m just marveling at the fact that you’re upset with meeting with world leaders when I made a bowl out of tin foil to eat my cereal this morning because I didn’t want to do dishes. But on the plus side you aren’t a transphobe, so that’s good,” Tony quips lightly. He’s been letting more details like that slip now but T’Challa did not know if that was because he was more comfortable in his presence or if that was just something Tony was making up because T’Challa responded to it well or something. It would be nice to know what Tony saw so he could accurately judge the situation here but he left it be. Tony was doing his job and T’Challa should simply accept it instead of reading too far into simple statements like a pining fool.

“Tin foil? Really? I used to do that as a child, it drove my father insane. He learned to hide the tin foil until I learned to use a bowl. Apparently it was unacceptable for a prince to use tin foil as a bowl but I argued that it was shiny and metal, kind of like a crown, which meant it made a perfectly acceptable bowl for a prince. He did not accept that argument and made me use bowls, much to my chagrin. And the bathroom thing, of course I support transgender people, but in Wakanda the bathrooms are not gendered. I did not know that people would take moral outrage to such a thing until it became popular in American media and honestly I do not see a reason to care. Your country is over nineteen trillion dollars in debt, I feel as if that is a more pressing subject,” he says primly.

Tony throws his head back and laughs, “oh yeah, but think of the children,” he says, giggling.

“I feel as if focusing on the debt and poverty would greatly benefit the children, not… bathrooms. Are there not laws against assault here? If an assault happens in the bathroom then take it to the authorities, there is no need to _ban_ people from the bathrooms. That irritates me. That and people assuming I am poor because I am from Africa, and the assumption that Africa is the name of every African country on the _continent_. And they say African education is lacking,” he mumbles. “Nevertheless, I am _not_ poor, my country is the most advanced country there is in almost every way, and I have enough money that I would bail America out of debt, _buy_ the country, reform it, and still have money left over. But no, Africans are poor,” he says, rolling his eyes and waving a hand around in annoyance.

“I have a Mexican friend that gets so annoyed when people refer to speaking Spanish as speaking ‘Mexican’ because Mexican is an ethnicity, not a language. I feel like you’d get along well,” Tony says, snickering. T’Challa wanted to meet Tony’s irritated Mexican friend now because he had so few people to complain to. Everyone else that dealt with these issues were fellow politicians so they were all interested in playing the game, not pointing out stupidity. So he kept his mouth shut unless he had an opportunity to slip a correction into the conversation naturally. His father would be proud.

They continue chatting and it’s easy and natural in a way that nothing else in T’Challa’s life is. It’s a lovely break from all the hectic politics and all the fake personalities and promises that came with it. Being a leader was exhausting work but he was starting to see the rewards of his work both within his home country and outside of it. He was happy to see Wakanda in the news for reasons other than being subtly being compared to North Korea because of his country’s secrecy. It was an unfair and cruel comparison and it made T’Challa want to throw things every time he saw it. Tony, however, was a nice break from all the poise he had to keep outside of his hotel rooms and his own home. Here he could be more himself, let his guard down some and it was highly therapeutic. He was not at all looking forward to the time when he would inevitably have to cut ties.

He ignores that though and he allows himself to relax in bed, Tony curled up in his arms and he feels happy, contented. Leaving might be unpleasant but right now was good and whole and he wanted to appreciate it while he could.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to add another chapter tonight but then I decided why not.

Rhodey might pay half the rent but he spent more time on base than he did at home and Tony was actually happy about that. A lot of his regulars travelled a lot for business and it meant a lot of his appointments were over the phone. He liked it because he could do dishes and the laundry while either talking politics or getting some dude off. Occasionally he got women but that was usually in person and they looked for escorts considerably less than men. Tony wanted to do some studies on why that was but he sucked at humanities, all he would be good with is the numbers part of that operation and that made him next to useless. Stats didn’t really get him the answer he wanted, especially when he already had rough stats.

The things he thought of while some guy was jerking off on the other end of his Bluetooth, he swore, were absolutely random. The only downside to his job over the phone was that phone sex was absolutely unbearable now. There was only so many times you could hear a dude cum when eating Chinese and still find it desirable and Tony had hit his limit a lot time ago. That meant that his saving grace tended to be either the regulars or the guys that called out of loneliness. He’s talked to many a seventy year old about their adorable grandchildren that were going into high school now. Or, if he was really lucky, he’d get a request to just moan or some other shit that was easy. The least sexy thing he’s ever done was moan while pulling out an ingrown toenail, which meant that half the groaning was real but it was him in pain. He kept the toenail information to himself though, no need to fill the customer in on the dirty details.

When his phone goes off he hits the button on his Bluetooth and rattles off a stupid greeting without paying much attention. “You should work on your sultry tone, it sounds more like you’re doing math than working for a sex phone line,” a familiar voice informs him.

T’Challa’s accent is a bit more thick than usual having spent more time speaking his native language than English. “Well jokes on you, I’m doing math homework,” he jokes, falling into his usual pattern of teasing his friends easily. He resists the urge to sigh at his own stupidity, he really should cut ties but he liked T’Challa. The man was sweet, and he just needed someone to talk to sometimes. It was isolating being the king of a nation that had worked hard to isolate itself, and it was even harder trying to integrate said nation back into world politics. He’d had a million and one discussions about Wakanda with his regulars, usually businessmen and politicians, and most of them seemed to completely misunderstand T’Challa.

“Math? What kind?” T’Challa asks and he sounds genuinely interested, which is always a plus to Tony.

“Well, engineering, but its got math in it. I have to do like… measurements and stuff,” he says somewhat vaguely. He wasn’t sure what he was designing really; he was just sort of doodling more than anything. It was a project that started out as sort of a bet between him and Bruce when they had gone out to get drunk one night. Bruce bet he couldn’t build tiny weapons that were just as efficient as their larger counterparts, which Tony told him was total absurdity considering he managed to miniaturize Anton Vanko’s famous arc reactor. He got a lot of press for that but he kept it mostly on paper due to his job possibly interfering with his scientific discoveries at this point. Regardless the bet sort of grew into creating a weapon that could wrap around the body but still housed weapons efficiently. Tony loved a challenge so he was on it.

“Interesting,” T’Challa tells him, “at the moment I’m attempting to work with the UN to secure Wakanda’s place in world politics and they are absolutely _infuriating_. Do you know a Ross? White man, tall, thin, an absolutely ignorant and offensive human,” T’Challa says. Unfortunately he did know Ross but not through his job.

“My lab partner is dating his daughter actually. Apparently in a bid to get rid of the poor guy Ross _poisoned_ his food with some sort of drug that made his heart race, which is a bad thing in general but more so because he has a heart defect. Total douchecanoe,” Tony says with conviction. T’Challa bursts out laughing, a loud, rich sound that Tony wished he hear more than his usual stressed and tired voice.

“Oh I wish I could say that to the man’s face, I would pay some good money to see the facial expression he made when confronted with such a… creative insult. Though I trust that your lab partner is alright?” he asks, sounding genuinely concerned.

“Yeah he’s fine, I mean he’s pissed off as all hell and he’s been cursing Ross’ name since that particular incident but he’s alright. Actually he’s made some sweet discoveries with anti-electron collisions. Guy is _brilliant_ and Ross off and tried to kill him because he doesn’t think his daughter is capable of basic decision-making. How does this guy even have a job?” Tony muses mostly to himself.

“You don’t happen to have evidence I can use to get him fired, do you?” T’Challa asks, the lilt in his tone indicating he’s joking. But Tony was fond of making sure people got their comeuppance so he took that more as a challenge.

“No, but I bet I _could_ get evidence in his evil-doings,” he says. He makes his way across the room and grabs his laptop, something custom made in his lab because he didn’t like any of the current models, and returns to his desk. So it might be a little illegal to hack into a government official’s personal computer to find the illegal shit he’s been doing, big deal. The government was shady as hell, would the _really_ care where the information came from?

“Tony, what are you doing?” T’Challa asks in a firm tone.

“Hacking into Ross’ computer to find out what he’s been up to,” Tony chirps, tapping away at his keyboard.

“Is that… can you actually do that?” T’Challa asks. He sounds impressed by Tony’s skill and he figures he probably should be impressed, his skills were pretty impressive.

“I can and oh look at that, he has a picture of Betty as his computer background. She looks pretty pissed but if I was wearing that god-awful pink dress I’d be pretty annoyed too. Now, lets go hunting for illegal secrets,” Tony says in a far too joyful tone.

“Are… you’re serious, aren’t you?” T’Challa asks, dumbfounded.

“‘Course, honey. Besides, everyone knows that couples that hack together stay together,” he says without thinking. He mentally kicks himself in the face for that shit- he really, _really_ needed to hand T’Challa off to someone less emotionally attached.

T’Challa remains silent and Tony prays that he doesn’t pursue that comment any farther. “Well, I suppose if you’re already poking around it couldn’t hurt to have the knowledge,” T’Challa says eventually. “I’m not keeping you awake though, am I? We are several time zones apart,” he points out.

“Nah, I keep odd hours anyways. The life of the PhD student,” he says wistfully, “and talking to you sure as hell beats listening to some freak beat his meat to the thought of me dressed up as a fish. I really with that was a joke.” Tony kicks himself for that too, talking to T’Challa as if he wasn’t one of Tony’s customers when he most definitely was.

“I would prefer to remain blissfully unaware to any fish fantasies, thank you,” T’Challa says in a prim tone.

“Uh huh, me too but I didn’t get that luxury so if I have to suffer so do you,” he tells T’Challa, grinning when T’Challa lets out a long-suffering sigh.

*

Steve sits across from Tony with large glasses on, obscuring most of his face. It was a good look for him actually, with his blonde hair flopping over the left lens and his angular features he looked like a model. And the glasses were Gucci, clearly a gift from a customer. “You know what, I didn’t really expect to like this job but I do. It’s… I mean mostly fun unless I have to talk to some jackass about republican politics. Never been a fan,” he says in a tone that’s almost a challenge.

“My father was a republican. I used to vote democrat to piss him off,” Tony says. Not that he didn’t lean more to the political left these days anyways, they tended to have better prospects for sex work and even they were shit. Regardless, he’d rather not get thrown in jail for something as stupid as doing his damn job.

“You should vote democrat because they have better politics,” Steve says in a judgmental tone.

“Calm down Cujo, I know which side best suits my current job prospects. Though if I ever do open my own company and it gets big enough it might suit me more to switch sides,” he says casually. Despite not being able to actually see half of Steve’s face he can see the annoyance and the curl of his lip just fine, “so I’m a self serving asshole, I’ve accepted it.”

“You’re despicable,” Steve tells him.

“I’ve accepted that too,” Tony says, grinning. “But on to subjects that aren’t freakishly boring like politics, how’re the customers treating you, any regulars?” he asks. This was always the best part, knowing who took a shining to whom and having first hand knowledge of what the sorry sucker had to do.

Steve wrinkles his nose lightly, “the job is great, really, and Sam is fantastic. But… do you happen to know a Jasper Sitwell?” he asks.

“Oh, you sorry soul,” Tony tells him with meaning. He dealt with Sitwell exactly one time and he was going to have nightmares about that night for life.

“Yeah, I feel bad for me too,” Steve says, “but he does give some pretty awesome gifts so I guess I should suck it up.”

“Is that not the point?” Tony jokes. Steve gives him a long-suffering glare that Tony can see even with the glasses obscuring most of Steve’s face. He was really expressive and that probably worked out nicely for him in this line for work. It worked well for Tony anyways, even if he spent half the time faking it.

“So, I’ve heard about your impressive customer base. The king of _Wakanda_ , seriously? What’s he like?” Steve asks, shifting forward in interest. Tony opens his mouth to answer and then clicks it shut, unsure of how to answer that. “Oh no, no, no, you told me no developing emotional attachments to the customers but you went and developed an emotional connection to your customer! Hypocritical ass,” Steve accuses.

“Yet another thing I’ve accepted. And in my defense I was speaking out of personal experience. T’Challa is great, he’s sweet, intelligent, loyal, a great leader, he’s funny, and he’s gorgeous, any idiot would love him. Plus he has a cat named Princess Leia and he insists people call the cat by her title, which everyone thinks is ‘Leia’ and he gets hilariously offended that they don’t think that ‘Princess’ is the title. Seriously, he went on a twenty-minute rant about how oblivious you would have to be to think a person’s title is their name instead of their… well their title. It was adorable,” Tony says earnestly.

“You dumbass, you’ve screwed yourself over,” Steve tells him, “you’re never going to date the king of Wakanda, he’s the _king of Wakanda_! You need to drop him before you get anymore invested.”

“Well look at you, turning into an expert in a few weeks. I may not ever end up with T’Challa, but at least I don’t have to deal with Sitwell,” Tony says and Steve makes a face. Petty revenge, he was good at it. Plus he already knew that he would never end up with T’Challa but he couldn’t help but dream big and end up with a bunch of fucking ridiculous pipe dreams that were never going to happen. So he was a masochist at heart, Steve didn’t need to twist the damn knife on him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for a mentions of violence, a mention of domestic violence, and a mention of child abuse.
> 
> Look at me go! Keeping up with all my stories! Whoo!

Steve looks tired and Tony didn’t blame him. Tony, he didn’t have a lot of people who cared about him and those that did were held at arms length, so hiding his job wasn’t very difficult. It wasn’t something he wanted to hide really, there were jobs that were far worse ethically than the one he had, but none that seemed to get criticized and shamed liked sex work. It was hypocritical, Tony thought, considering nearly everyone partook in sex work in one way or another. There weren’t very many people that had never at least watched porn and it irritated him that people had no problem indulging in sex work, but god forbid the workers expect to be treated like anything other than shit. It made telling people what you did a problem, at least if you were around people who would care.

“I love my friends, I do, but I don’t think they would understand this,” Steve says, looking dismayed. Over the last couple weeks of hanging out with him Tony has learned that Steve was very liberal, and also one hell of a dreamer. That was a shitty combination in a line of work that might very well get you killed because people cared so little about you.

“Probably not. I mentioned it to Rhodey once and got a _look_ , you know the one, the way people look at you like they’re judging you for your opinion.” He liked to think Rhodey would come around, he’s supported Tony in decisions that were way less ethical than, well, doing a _job_ , but Tony didn’t want to wait it out. He didn’t have a huge friend group to choose from, the curse of being far more intelligent than the average person, so he wasn’t in a position to throw away what little friend group he had.

Sometimes he wished he could connect to people like normal people did but it was hard to listen to boring small talk and follow idiotic social rules like asking yourself if you knew a person well enough to even talk about certain aspects of your life. The rules were utterly useless in his opinion and his sharp bluntness and willingness to openly share left people claiming he was too much all at once. When he had met Rhodey he hadn’t been intimidated by Tony’s strong personality and the poor guy, Tony stuck to him like glue after that. Pepper had been perfectly willing to argue with him and Tony has always loved a good argument, the ones that left him thinking afterwards and Pepper delivered. So did Steve, actually, he was incredibly well spoken and his opinions tended to send Tony on research binges for confirmation. Even Pepper wasn’t that good so he appreciated having Steve around, that, and he actually knew what Tony did in his spare time.

“Yeah, I mentioned it to Bucky- he’s my best friend- and I got that look. It was quickly followed by an inquiry as to why anyone would go into this line of work. I didn’t really have the energy to tell him that I can’t keep up with a normal job, I get tired too easily and I can’t stay on my feet or sit for eight or more hours a day. And I’m not qualified for jobs that would allow for some sort of leeway in that and I’m not made of money, I can’t just go to college to get qualifications. This doesn’t take all my energy to do and I get good money doing it, this job is literally perfect for working around my health issues minus a few restrictions sex-wise and even then it doesn’t really hinder me any. The question is why _wouldn’t_ someone do this if it worked for them?” Steve asks, annoyed.

Tony nods, “I like not working myself into the ground to survive too. I have school to pay for and PhDs aren’t cheap. I mean I’m a genius so I have a full-ride scholarship but there are other costs to the degree that aren’t always paid for and engineering isn’t cheap either, and neither is housing. I had to survive somehow and this beats working my ass off for minimum wage only to find I _still_ don’t have enough money to live. Plus I like the job, it’s fun, I like being someone else for awhile and the sex is pretty good. Why the fuck would I work at McDonald’s all day running myself ragged when I can have fancy dinner with some politician who’s secretly gay and wants some fun on the side? I mean I think the choice is obvious but I guess not.” Bruce worked at McDonald’s and the horror stories from that were worse than the ones he got working with Sam. Not that his job was without risk, there was a lot of risk, especially is you weren’t with a good agency, but he’s never had someone get mad that he hadn’t cleaned the bathroom and throw shit at him.

It was all in the employer, if you had one, and where you were working. You know, almost like every other job in existence but with a lot more shaming and insults for the work you did. “Right? So what, my choices are literally working myself to death or starving because _that’s_ better than sex work? Hell no, if the choice is between trying to push myself to do a job I’m not capable of or riding some dude’s dick for ten minutes I’m obviously going to ride that dick. I’ve gotten good at angle, now I’m not even winded after _and_ I make way better money off of a few hours worth of work than I would doing any other job I’m technically qualified for. Wait- did you say you were a genius? Is that like legit or do you have an inflated ego? I’m thinking option two,” Steve tells him, grinning to show that the jab was a joke.

Sometimes it was hard to tell with him because he’s a little bit of an asshole, but Tony’s a little bit of an asshole too so he still liked Steve despite his flaws. “Yeah, I’m an actual genius, one of the eight smartest people in the world actually. That’s going by IQ, which I have problems with, but you get the point. Actually I share a lab with another one of the eight smartest people in the world, and I’m across the hall from another, but Bruce and I hate Richards. But Richards, Bruce and I all hate Pym more than we hate each other so sometimes we team up to be an asshole to him,” Tony says enthusiastically. He might hate Reed Richards but the guy was a genius when it came to fucking with Pym. Plus they all thought Jan deserved better than his abusive ass and Tony might hate Richards but he was at least good to Sue. Granted that was probably because Sue would kick his ass if he tried any bullshit with her but still.

Steve squints, “most of the eight smartest people in the world happen to be white guys found in America? Convenient. I am interested to hear your problems with IQ tests, though,” he says and he leans forward in interest.

“Not all, T’Challa is in that list too and let me tell you, it is _so_ refreshing to have a conversation with someone who knows what I’m talking about when I talk details of synthesizing new elements. Seriously. The IQ tests though, it isn’t like they’re administered to everyone and they don’t really test every kind of intelligence. If they tested social intelligence I’m pretty sure I’d rank somewhere in the worlds dumbest instead of the world’s smartest. Plus it is convenient that most of the smartest people in the world are white dudes from America, I hadn’t thought of that…” Tony trails off, thinking. He wasn’t sure what the hell kind of intelligence let Steve draw quick conclusions about ‘coincidences’ in the world that reinforced typical cultural narratives but he had a lot of it. It was something Tony appreciated because it was a new way of looking at things and he _loved_ to learn, and this wasn’t an area he was good at. He rarely found people who could actually teach him something of value and he wanted more of it.

At the mention of multiple intelligences Steve goes off on a rant and Tony settles in to listen to him go, both amused and awed by the amount of passion Steve had. He really needed more friends like this.

*

T’Challa is lamenting about world politics again and Tony can’t help but laugh at how done the man sounds. Tony listens on his blue tooth while he does the dishes as T’Challa lets out his frustrations on the American system. “America thinks _Brock Rumlow_ would make a good president,” he says, sounding annoyed, “the man has insulted near every group that exists in America! Why are people voting for him! This is why Wakanda is superior,” he mumbles.

“Our alternatives kind of suck since Peggy Cater had to drop out, that woman would have changed the damn world but then her husband up and died. Now it’s either Rumlow or Ward and honestly I either vote for super villain material or a moron,” Tony says. If Steve wasn’t up his ass he probably would have just not bothered to keep up with the elections but no, he had lots of opinions on that too. And apparently he went to high school with Peggy, which sounded as awesome as it did terrifying.

“Which one is the moron and which is the super villain?” T’Challa asks, deadpan.

“I… you know what, that’s a good point. At this point I just sort of want to quit politics but I can’t because everyone keeps asking my opinion. Curse of going to a good school,” he says, waving a spatula around. Bubbles and water go flying everywhere but he ignores that in favor of getting the week old egg off the damn spatula. Every time he left this shit he was essentially kicking his future self in the balls but did that stop him? Nope. If he ever got rich off his inventions he was paying a maid to do this shit because he never wanted to clean an egg covered spatula ever again.

“Good school? Well, you certainly are intelligent. It isn’t often that I find someone who not only keeps up, but also surpasses me in knowledge of technology. You have a very creative mind,” T’Challa tells him.

“Thanks, cupcake, but that’s just how my mind works. There’s no sense in complimenting something that comes more naturally than breathing sometimes. Also I’m pretty sure my lab partner thinks I’m more of a mad scientist than a genius,” he says. Sometimes Bruce gave him the side eye when he talked about his ideas but ultimately Bruce would quietly help him out because he might think Tony is nuts, but he was loyal to Tony even when he made bad life choices.

“Just because something comes naturally to you does not mean it stops being amazing. Sometimes if I find that I cannot solve a problem with something I am trying to build I mention it to you and you solve problems I did not even consider. Do not sell yourself short on talent, that is a very impressive set of skills,” T’Challa tells him. Tony thanks his lucky stars he wasn’t standing in front of T’Challa because his cheeks heat at the comment. The things he had to say and do for his job and being _complimented_ made him blush of all things.

“I uh… thanks,” Tony says quietly, “and for the record I think you’re a great leader. It really pisses me off when people act like you aren’t just because Wakanda has chosen to stay out of world politics. After this year who can blame you guys? The world is a mess; I can see why you wouldn’t want anything to with it. I, uh, actually got into a fight the other day defending your honor but don’t worry, that guy got _ruined_ in the debate. I wouldn’t even call it a debate honestly, his arguments were weak at best and I nailed his ass to the wall but you know, in the interest of giving him a shred of dignity back.” Tony shrugs even though T’Challa can’t see it and then proceeds to thank whatever gods were out there that the damn egg finally stopped clinging to his spatula.

“You defended my honor?” T’Challa asks and Tony _swears_ he sounds touched but over the phone it was hard to tell.

“‘Course I did, I’m not fond of misinformation being treated as truth so I wasn’t about to let it slide. Plus I like you,” Tony says, snickering.

“Very touching, dear,” T’Challa says in a bland tone.

“Only the best for you, pumpkin,” Tony says cheerily.

*

Tony didn’t usually take last minute appointments but he had just finished the last of JARVIS’ personality coding and he was finally up and running. He had a lot of kinks to work out, obviously, but he was done and through use Tony could locate and fix any problems so that JARVIS was perfect by the time his program was over. As a result he was feeling happy and pretty generous so when Sam calls him to take on a last minute client he figures fuck it, might as well make some extra money too.

That was how he found himself standing in an alley trying to catch his breath with one eye squeezed shut and the other swelling shut. If he hadn’t been more focused on his own accomplishments he would have noticed something off right away, he was _good_ at that. But no, he hadn’t been paying enough attention and, well, looks like he had the next week off. He’d use it to build JARVIS more, work out the bugs, harass Bruce a little with the AI. He touches his cheek and hisses at the contact. Damn, that was probably a shitty look on him. Never did look good when he was a kid and it was Howard that hit him, he doubted it looked better on him as an adult.

The last thing he expects is for the shadow that falls over him to belong to T’Challa and he blinks in surprise when he looks up. Well, his good eye blinks; the other one was basically useless. “Tony,” he says and takes a step forward but Tony takes a step back. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew what came next and he wanted nothing to do with it. “Tony,” T’Challa says, softer this time and he doesn’t step closer. At least he wasn’t an idiot; clearly he knew how to read body language.

“I’m fine,” he mumbles because he _was_. So this sucked, he’s been through worse and he’d get through this too. It wasn’t that bad, he’s taken a beating before.

“I know you’re not foolish enough to believe that. What happened?” T’Challa asks and maybe on a different day Tony might have heard him out but today he had had enough. He had better things to do than deal with some other client’s baggage.

“Then call me a fool,” he snaps, “I _am_ fine and in case you think I’m some dainty twit in need of saving from the Big Bad Sex Work I’m _not_. I like my job, I like that it makes me a lot of money doing a small amount of work, and I like that it doesn’t take over my entire life. So I got a shitty client, it happens. I still don’t need you coming around to swoop in and save the day. You don’t know me so leave me alone,” he snaps with more force than necessary.

“Tony-” T’Challa starts and he shakes his head.

“No, just leave me be.” With that he turns on his heel and marches down the alley so he could find the nearest subway to get home, calling Sam on the way.

*

T’Challa was a fool, of course Tony was right. There was no need to save him, and he didn’t need saving anyways. If Tony was anything like the personality he threw on than he was considerably tough all on his own. He shakes his head, irritated with his own stupidity for having ever thought this was any sort of a relationship. Of course it wasn’t and Tony was quick to point it out, rightfully so. He would like to go out and get drunk or something equally stupid but he is a king, a major political player of the world, and he had an entire country full of people counting on him to lead them in the right direction. He could not afford to do something stupid and he had deluded himself into thinking he could.

It was unfair to Tony anyways, he was right, T’Challa didn’t know him so what right did he have to care? All he knew is what Tony allowed himself to show and that could have been completely made up for all he knew. His intelligence was real but that was the only thing T’Challa had tangible proof of. Tony clearly had an intimate knowledge of engineering, and a considerably fresh perspective too. That wasn’t the kind of thing you could fake, not like that anyways. If he was not resolved to do just as Tony had told him, leave him alone, than he might have read into that knowledge, asked himself why Tony would share any personal details at all. Probably because it was easy to weave the truth with lies, it made it easier to keep up with yourself later. That was how politicians did it.

He almost doesn’t notice the drink that is placed directly in front of his face and he decides that his pining needed to be over with. “Thank you,” he says to Nanali, one of the Dora Milaje that he brought with him on these… expeditions. He could have done without the disaster that was world politics but his father had worked hard to try and open the country up to the world, it was his job to see that through now. Still, the amber liquid looks good and one drink would not hurt.

Nanali snorts when he downs the entire drink in one gulp but she says nothing, instead choosing to sit beside him. A silent show of support and he was grateful for that, and grateful that she chose to remain silent. He knew he deserved to be berated for his foolishness and selfishness but he was glad that he did not have to deal with that lecture now. It never would have worked anyways, even if Tony was not simply doing his job. He is a king and kings did not meet their significant others via an escort service. There was nothing wrong with that in his opinion, people met in unconventional ways all the time but the world was not ready for something like that. The world was barely ready to accept Wakanda as it was let alone with a scandal like this around their leader. His people did not deserve to suffer for his mistakes.

A hand lands on his shoulder and he turns to find Nanali’s strong gaze, “it is not the end of the world,” she tells him. He huffs out a laugh because of, he knew that, but it felt that way. T’Challa shakes off the thought though, shedding the melodramatics that were unbecoming for a king. He had responsibilities and Tony was right, none of those responsibilities were Tony’s safety, even if T’Challa wanted that.


	4. Chapter 4

Bruce has been staying at the labs as much as Tony and he wonders if the man had found something important. He usually went home around three or four to cook dinner for Betty unless she was out of town. Whatever other work he had he did it at home or at least that’s what Tony guessed. It wasn’t really his business regardless, he guessed, but his new lab hours being so late were odd.

When Tony goes to go home after spending nearly two days in the lab he finally sees what Bruce was up to because Bruce follows him out silently. Tony gives him a look and Bruce shrugs, “I don’t know what happened, but breakups are hard. I didn’t think you should be alone right now,” he says and Tony clenches his jaw and blinks rapidly to keep from crying. Pepper hadn’t even noticed the change in his behavior and even _Steve_ had noticed. Rhodey hasn’t called in a while but he had military things to do.

“Wasn’t a breakup, but thank you,” he says, resolving to buy Bruce pizza for being a good friend. Tony didn’t even know what he did to deserve it considering he spent more time making fun of Bruce than anything else. He really should stop being a compulsive asshole. Bruce just nods and walks with him and thankfully he doesn’t ask any uncomfortable questions, instead realizing it was more than enough to just be there.

Bruce goes through his movie collection while he orders the pizza and Tony is more than a little amused when he chooses Mulan. He didn’t peg Bruce for the Disney princess type but then no one would guess he was either. But he could relate to Mulan being the family disappointment no matter how hard she tried and even though he sure as hell wasn’t about to save China any time soon he did want to overcome the odds. Also, Shang is hot.

When the pizza gets there they all but devour the whole thing having been in the lab for far too long without food. “So, not to sound like an ungrateful ass, but why are you here? I’m kind of a jerk to you,” Tony says honestly. Sometimes he just couldn’t help it, like when Bruce was using outdated equipment that might skew his results so Tony built him better equipment and Bruce ended up redoing the experiment because Tony messed the last one up. But his results weren’t skewed so Tony figured Bruce should have focused on that, not his ruined experiment. But other times he was just an ass for no reason because… no idea, just sometimes he felt compelled to be an asshole.

“You believed me,” Bruce says and Tony frowns, “about Ross,” he clarifies. “No one else did and you didn’t even hesitate when I said he poisoned me, you were just shocked and outraged on my behalf. So you might be an ass, but you were the only one who didn’t doubt that story and you buy coffee every morning. I’ll love anyone that saves me from being all but force-fed the department’s coffee. I might even worship you, have you ever drank that sludge? You’re a lifesaver,” Bruce tells him.

Tony huffs out a laugh, shaking his head, “alright then. The Ross thing though- the hell would you have to gain from lying? You’re some random grad student, I mean your brilliant, but you don’t publish your work under your own name so it isn’t like you’re vying for attention. And even if you were, Ross is way too big of a fish for you to take on on your own and you’re smart enough to know it too. Therefore there was no reason for you to lie, not to mention people don’t really whip out ‘my would-be father-in-law tried to poison me over dinner’ very often. If you were going to lie you’d at least make it believable. Duh,” he says as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

“You know people who have whipped out ‘my would-be father-in-law poisoned me over dinner’ in general? I shouldn’t be surprised, everything with you is weirdly dramatic and over the top. You made a semi-autonomous AI system to piss off your thesis supervisor and then made a mini arc reactor with lab scraps to prove a guy wrong. Plus you’ve been working on that bet we made and you’ve been making real headway. _Impressive_ headway. Speaking of- have you seen that Wakandan tech initiative thing? You should apply, if you didn’t get in I’d… well I don’t think getting rejected would even be possible for you,” Bruce says.

“Yeah, no, not gunna do that but thanks man. And you never know, some people have some seriously fucked up in-laws. Could you imagine if my ‘rents were still alive? Some sorry fucker would have to deal with _Howard_.” His mother was pretty awesome minus her choosing to stick with Howard, but other than that if he ever chose to burden himself with marriage she would have been supportive. Howard would probably point out all the ways in which he’d fail there too and then he’d inevitably destroy the relationship just like he always did and Howard would sing a happy tune.

He and Bruce continue to chat and the conversation comes easily, and even more than that Bruce didn’t judge him for how fucked up he was. Bruce was pretty messed up too, apparently, and he had taken to watching Tony. He sort of wished Bruce wasn’t so observant because he had made some really uncomfortable connections, but it was also nice that he didn’t have to pretend to be normal for once. That had been something else that Bruce had enjoyed about him, that he never expected Bruce to act normal and didn’t react badly when Bruce dropped the ‘mentally a-ok’ act. So the guy talked to himself sometimes, Tony talked to some lines of code, the fact that JARVIS could talk back didn’t really make him any less crazy looking. Besides, Bruce wasn’t harming anyone with his mumbling to himself or whatever, who was Tony to judge?

*

Steve had noticed the shift in Tony’s behavior but Tony didn’t think that he would pull a Bruce and decide to come home with him. “It isn’t like I hear about you abundantly large friend group, someone has to make sure you’re okay,” Steve says when Tony questions it. “And I actually know what happened, it has to be hard not being able to really talk to whomever it is you might want to confide in.” He looks sympathetic and Tony decides not to push his luck because for the first time in a long time he actually had people to talk to and it was weirdly liberating.

“Actually my lab partner knows and he was entirely unsurprised to find out what I did in my spare time,” Tony says. Bruce had taken it surprisingly well and then proceeded to ask about wage and hours because his job at McDonald’s made him want to gouge out his own eyes. Given his mental health issued Tony resolved himself to watch Bruce for any eye-gouging behaviors even if he was pretty sure Bruce wasn’t serious.

His stories continued to be far worse than Tony’s despite his job holding more risk. He’s had to deal with some real assholes but no one has screamed at him for so long and in such a cruel way that seventy other people apologized for that one guy. Tony was genuinely worried about minimum wage workers because _damn_ Bruce had some serious horror stories. And a few funny ones too, like the time some guy left a pig in the bathroom. A _live_ pig and then claimed he _forgot_ it. _A live pig_. That was Tony’s favorite story, that and the ones where the ants got bad and the workers watched fries walk across the floor.

Steve raises an eyebrow, “oh? Well I don’t care I’m coming home with you anyways, I have plans and you aren’t going to interrupt them,” Steve says, powering on. Tony shakes his head and follows him back to his own damn apartment only to watch Steve take over the place like he owned it. Tony could appreciate his natural leadership skills even if it resulted in the contents of his fridge being insulted, mostly because the result was someone cooking for him. The last time he made a meal that wasn’t some kind of bizarre ramen noodle thing was… he actually couldn’t remember. Whenever he got rich and famous he was going to hire someone to cook for him. And clean because he’s managed to kill two separate washing machines in this building by setting them on _fire_. Which is the opposite of what they do. And reading up on how they worked so he understood the mechanics did not help.

“So,” Tony says conversationally, “what are you making?” Steve had found everything pretty easily, most of the stuff he needed was in the sink dirty, which had resulted in Round Two of Steve’s lectures on self-care. He was a bossy little asshole but it was from a good place so Tony was happy to deal with it. It wasn’t like anyone else cared enough to tell him to do dishes on a regular basis in order to avoid bugs and other unwanted critters. Mostly Rhodey looked at the pile of dishes like his soul just died inside his body but he still had to function. He was somewhat happy to have Steve around waving a soapy spatula while dolling out lectures. And he was doing housework for free, which was always okay with Tony regardless of the situation. He once lived with a guy who had forty rats because he cleaned. Then he woke up with a rat on his chest and he was out, the critters were only cute from afar, thanks.

“You’ll see,” Steve says cryptically, “so have you seen that Wakandan tech thing? Didn’t you say you were something of an engineer?” he asks.

“No, I’m not doing that and you didn’t even approve of my quasi relationship with T’Challa so I don’t even know why you brought this up,” Tony says. Boy had Bruce been floored by that revelation when Tony had finally explained exactly what was going on. He maybe kind of had a point that Tony’s life was needlessly dramatic and weird. It wasn’t like Tony could help being so naturally awesome.

“What? This has nothing to do with T’Challa, well, not directly anyways. I just figured you might be qualified for the thing and it would be a kind of cool experience,” Steve says. “And for the record your quasi break up was for the best, it was never a sustainable relationship anyways.”

“You’re a real asshole sometimes, you know that? It’s still painful sustainable relationship or not,” Tony snaps, angry for no real reason at all. He hadn’t even realized that he had a set schedule for calls with T’Challa until he didn’t, and he’s been to America twice since their unofficial breakup thing. Actually he’s been busy all over the world and Tony was inexplicably pissed off that he didn’t get to hear about it so he released every scrap of shitty politics he could find on Ross. Bruce had been pleased even if he had to pretend to be upset for Betty’s sake. He was pretty sure that Bruce had only agreed to go to prison visits with her for the satisfaction of seeing Ross in jail, not that he’s ever tell her that.

Steve sighs and turns to face Tony more fully, “I get that, I do, but you’re mourning the loss of something that never existed outside of your own mind,” he says softly, gently.

“Who’s to say that doesn’t make it worse?” Tony asks more to himself than Steve.

*

Bruce was scribbling away at his desk on some formal looking papers so Tony raises an eyebrow, “whatcha up to, Brucie?” he asks, dropping Bruce’s coffee next to him and walking over to his own paper stack. JARVIS was now fully operational, bugs removed, and ability to recode bugs out himself installed. It was more than he needed to do but he didn’t want to be going in and finding junk code in JARVIS’ system every ten minutes, so it made sense to have the AI in charge of his own well being.

“Filling out ‘give me money please’ papers,” he says and Tony laughs.

“Ahh the problems of a grad student, funding your research,” Tony says. He hadn’t had much trouble once he was able to prove he was capable of the things he wanted to do but Bruce hadn’t been as lucky. Tony felt for him because the man was absolutely brilliant, there really wasn’t any need to _not_ fund his research.

“As if you know the struggle,” Bruce teases, “you get all the money while the rest of us mere mortals grovel for money.”

“Then I must be a god,” Tony says, drawing out a sharp laugh from Bruce.

“Oh yeah, Stark, you’re godly alright. So what’s on the agenda for today?” he asks and Tony tells him. Bruce peppers him with questions all day, asking about JARVIS and his functions until the AI just takes over answering the questions. This freaks Bruce out but he continues awkwardly talking to the AI and asking about some of Tony’s other projects too. He tells Tony later that he’s impressed with his ability to build something so complicated, which, _duh_. He’s Tony Stark, it was what he did.

*

T’Challa had better things to do, a king was always busy, but he didn’t want to deal with politics and diplomacy at the moment so instead he looks over the papers for the Wakanda Technology Initiative that he had opened. The intention was to prove that Wakanda wasn’t afraid to let outsiders in regardless of how untrue that was, it would at least make them look good to the rest of the world. People had already combed through the applications of course, handing him the candidates they thought best qualified. He flicks through most of them quickly, reading over their work and research. They were all brilliant of course but it’s the last candidate that catches his attention.

_Tony Stark_. The man had build a semiautonomous AI system, miniaturized Anton Vanko’s famous arc reactor with _lab scraps_ , and was currently working on some sort of… suit thing that was meant to be a full body weapon. Some sketches of the design were included with the math, but the project was rough. The equations weren’t balancing but he assumed Tony knew that given his previous experience. On paper the man was impressive, and unafraid to actually write with personality thankfully. T’Challa liked him if for no other reason than not being allergic to the first person like the rest of academia was. His writing was sloppy but that was an easily forgivable offense.

He approves that application and a few others before pulling himself together in order to get more diplomatic work done so he could go to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a mention of child abuse I think but I'm pretty sure that's the only warning this chapter needs. If not let me know!

When Bruce gets the package he runs off with it before Tony can come back with the morning coffee. He had to know if Tony got into the program or not before he opened it, mostly because he didn’t want to tell Tony about it only to have him not get in. That wasn’t something Bruce thought was possible, Tony is brilliant almost beyond compare, but he was also the one who filled out all the paperwork. Try as he might it was difficult to capture Tony’s personality on paper and Bruce knew for a fact that he rarely ever applied for things using a normal format. Bruce actually admired that Tony refused to play the social game rule; he thought it was impressive because he didn’t have the confidence to pull that off to successfully.

He quickly rips open the envelope and examines the contents before he gets to the letter part. A quick scan has him dancing around excitedly because Tony got approved. Of course he did but Bruce couldn’t help but feel a small bit of victory for himself because he was the one who made Tony look good. Taking a deep breath he calms himself a little and gathers the papers, walking out to greet Tony just as the door to the lab opens. Mercifully Tony has coffee with him and Bruce half wanted to kiss him for his efforts. The man was an absolute lifesaver with his coffee fetching ways.

“Thanks,” Bruce says, pulling his cup from the tray, “also you got into that technology thing in Wakanda.” Subtle he was not but hey, Tony got the point and he didn’t really expect Bruce to act normal anyways. It was a blessing to not have to be on high alert to monitor his behaviors at all times. The only other person he could do that with was Betty and he loved her dearly for it.

Tony frowns, “I didn’t apply to that tech thing in Wakanda so how the hell did I get in?” he asks.

“I applied for you,” Bruce tells him casually, taking a sip of his coffee and making a pleased noise. One cream, just the way he liked it.

“I… what the hell, Bruce? Why would you do that?” Tony asks, flailing his arms around. Bruce gets the satisfaction of watching Tony’s coffee go ass over teakettle out of the tray and splatter all over the floor. Tony glares at Bruce like he was the one responsible and Bruce simply smiles at him.

“Because I wasn’t going to let you miss out on a cool opportunity because you had a sort-of-but-not-really relationship with the king of Wakanda. Plus I want to know what it’s like and I can’t go and you aren’t cheating me out of this because you think you’ll run into T’Challa, which you won’t, because he’s the _king_ and he has better things to do than babysit grad students. So you’re going to go and I’m going to live vicariously through you and it’s going to be awesome. Pack you bags and tell me every single detail,” Bruce tells him, picking up a crumpled paper off his work area and tossing it at Tony.

Tony sighs and rubs his temples.

*

This was only for Bruce or at least that’s what Tony tells himself when he’s being led through the building that his college counterparts were being walked through. So far it was uneventful and he makes sure to text Bruce every single dull detail as punishment for hijacking his identity to send him to Wakanda. The students he was with seemed interesting enough though and that was all he could ask for. Nothing was worse than sharing a lab with some dingbat who stuck everything in backwards and then blamed the _tech_ for not working right. His very brief time sharing a lab with Justin Hammer has taught him that he has a very limited tolerance for stupidity. If it had been a person unfamiliar with tech okay, but that idiot claimed himself a genius and as an actual genius Tony was deeply offended at the comparison.

The first day is uneventful and Tony spends it ignoring everyone to work on the repulsor technology that was supposed to balance out the user of the suit. Technically flying wasn’t in the bet specifications but what use was a full body weapon that limited mobility? So flying capabilities it was, plus they doubled as a non-lethal weapon. Bonus points to him for being so awesome. And bonus points to the woman from Baghdad for knowing that his power source was a miniaturized arc reactor and double bonus points for suggesting some pretty sweet upgrades. He decides he likes her best.

Day Number Two goes exactly the same way only he ends up almost going through a wall testing the repulsor tech and scaring the shit out of the other people sharing the lab. He texts Bruce every excruciating detail and the fact that Bruce doesn’t respond either means he’s accepted his fate or he’s a freak and he’s actually enjoying the insane level of detail Tony has been putting into his texts. He doesn’t even use short forms just to make sure Bruce spends longer reading.

“Significant other?” the woman from Baghdad asks as he furiously types a text to Bruce outlining every way he altered the repulsor tech that day. He couldn’t remember her name for the life of him but he couldn’t remember anyone’s names. The only exception was some guy who was straight up named Rocket and his tall Nigerian buddy Groot. He wasn’t sure who was the brains of that operation but the explosions were awesome.

“What? Nah, lab partner back home. He forged all my documentation so I could go because I wasn’t going to apply myself, and get this; he did it because he knew he wouldn’t qualify. He wanted every detail of my experience here so now I’m giving him some painfully detailed texts of my days to punish him for high jacking my identity,” he says, finishing off the long text and sending it. He quickly opens a new one to go on with more detail than necessary.

“You’re punishing him by… doing exactly what he wanted you to do? You’re a very strange man. Why would you have not applied though? You’re clearly very intelligent,” she points out.

“I uh, it’s a bit complicated. There uh, um, my uh, uhh-” thankfully she saves him from tripping over his words.

“Family issues?” she asks sympathetically.

“Yeah, my mom. Cancer. It isn’t pretty,” he says, borrowing Bruce’s story just a little. He gets a gentle squeeze of his shoulder and a wish of luck in response and he furiously texts that to Bruce too.

“You’re mother has cancer?” another very, very familiar voice asks and _shit_. Tony was going to freeze Bruce out of the lab for this.

“Nah, she’s been dead for almost thirteen years. My dad too but honestly he was terrible so wasn’t much of a loss. I mean I miss my mom but she is very much dead. Super dead, decayed, dust, I wonder if that hideous powder blue power suit they buried her in is still there. She hated that thing; I have no clue why anyone buried her in it. Kinda rude if you ask me but no one asked me so uh- yeah, I’m going to shut up now,” he says, cutting off his rambling with a quick click of his jaw.

T’Challa looks like he’s battling being amused and pitying Tony, “it’s alright to laugh, that suit was a joke, mom would agree,” he says. She regularly lamented about the thing but Howard loved it and for some reason she loved that piece of shit with all her hart. She had a bigger capacity to love that Tony ever could but sometimes he thinks it’s a good thing if it meant he didn’t love people like Howard. Other times he thinks it’s a bad thing because he swore he couldn’t love at all.

That earns Tony a shake of T’Challa’s head, “you weren’t going to apply because of me,” he says bluntly.

“I… yeah. But Bruce said you’re the king and you have better shit to do than babysit grad students and my dumb ass believed him. I’m going to drown his sushi in soy sauce for this,” he says. Bruce hated soy sauce but especially in abundance.

“If I’m making you uncomfortable I can go,” T’Challa offers and Tony kind of hates that he’s still sweet.

“Nah, might as well let everyone else fangirl over you. I mean I have an edge up in actually knowing you. Kind of. I mean under a specific circumstance but still you get the point I need to go somewhere that is not here,” he says, looking around for an exit and finding mostly trees and the building containing the labs. Well this was horrible.

“I am not in the habit of lying or putting on a show if I do not need to, you know me better than most,” T’Challa tells him and he saves Tony from escaping by making a hasty retreat himself. Tony has no idea what to do with the information that he knew T’Challa better than most. T’Challa knew him pretty well too, it wasn’t like he went out of his way to hide his personality after awhile. T’Challa actually responded pretty well to it and that was weird considering everyone who wasn’t Bruce, Steve, Pepper, and Rhodey ran for the hills. And even then Rhodey and Pepper kept their distance. Well, Rhodey was in the military and Pepper was doing the lawyer thing. He couldn’t really fault them for that. It still sort of hurt when the forgot to call him though.

*

The best thing about Wakanda, in Tony’s humble opinion, was the crazy amount of cats. He _loved_ the furry little creatures and between his being dirt poor and his being a transient student he hadn’t had the resources to own one. Now he had like ten in the immediate vicinity at all times and they were all very friendly. Wakanda, he noticed, was a country full of cat people though that might be because their religion involved panthers or some other jungle cat. He was shaky on the details but he knew better than to touch the statues, it was in the training they got at the beginning.

But the cats were lovely and Bruce had gotten no less than fifty cat pictures a day. His lab buddies, if he could even call them that, thought he was nuts with the exception of Groot, who also loved the cats. Rocket was not so happy with the cats but he compensated for this by climbing Groot like a tree and clinging to his back. Groot didn’t seem to mind. Bruce, however, finally told him to stop sending so many cat pictures so naturally Tony sends like fifty more cat pictures. They were adorable and Betty, on Bruce’s phone, tells him that she appreciated the cat pictures even if Bruce did not. So he sends a bunch more because who was he to make Betty unhappy with less cat pictures?

He’s in the middle of taking a picture of an orange tabby cat when a big fluffy white cat come trotting up like royalty, shoving her face directly into Tony’s phone to demand attention. “Well then,” he says, petting the cat’s freakishly soft fur. “You must use better shampoo than me, damn your fur is soft. Where did you come from, hmm? You’re pretty cute, you must belong to someone. Who’s your owner, princess?” he asks the purring animal. He’d take a picture but every time he tries the cat head butts the phone to get more attention. “Demanding,” Tony accuses but he’s happy to pet the soft kitty for as long as the cat let him.

“All that effort I go to get people to call her princess and I do not even have to correct you,” T’Challa says. Tony turns to find the king in all his glory standing behind him in a soft looking t-shirt and very worn jeans. That might be the most casual Tony had ever seen him considering T’Challa had always been more interested in that talking part of his services than the sex part. Tony was fine with that, sometimes he could use the break but then he had freaked out and T’Challa had gone away and he hadn’t realized how much he didn’t really want that. But he was the one who told T’Challa to go away, he made his bed, he got to lie in it.

“She does look like a princess in her defense,” Tony says and the cat all but leaps into his lap, head butting his chin to demand more attention. “Honestly you must be a nuisance when T’Challa is trying to do paperwork,” he tells the cat. He goes back to petting her soft fur though, content with listening to the cat’s soft purring.

“You have no idea. Sometimes she steps in ink and walks across the pages to be passive aggressive. If I’m also feeling passive aggressive I send the paperwork out with the cat paws on them and claim that I did not notice,” he says and Tony laughs. Yeah, as if someone wouldn’t notice cat paws across a bunch of papers.

“Sometimes my lab partner spills his coffee on my papers and I hand them in to my thesis supervisor anyways because he hates that and I hate him,” Tony says conversationally. T’Challa smiles at him and Tony smiles back, probably too wide, but he missed this. Whatever ‘this’ was. Not anything resembling normal anyways. Normally he didn’t even like the clients let alone want to spend more time with them.

“Yes, Bruce if I remember correctly,” T’Challa says.

“Yeah, that’d be the one,” Tony says.

“The one who stole your identity to get you here. He did a good job faking you on paper.” Yeah, good enough to get him here. He wanted to read his own application now just to see if Bruce did him any justice.

“Clearly. And uh, thank you,” he says awkwardly. Thankfully Princess Leia demands his attention and he is content to focus on the cat rather than T’Challa. He half expects T’Challa to leave but then he remembers that he’s holding the man’s cat, he probably wasn’t going anywhere without his animal.

Instead of leaving T’Challa gently lowers himself to the ground, reaching out to pet his cat. Princess Leia responds well though she doesn’t seem to know what to do with to options in regards to pets so she settles for sitting on Tony while T’Challa pets her. “This happens every time she gets out. She finds someone to go and pet her and gets confused when two people are willing to pet her. Cats,” T’Challa says, shaking his head.

“When I was young I fed this stray for awhile and the poor thing was so unused to attention that every time I touched him he’d freeze up. Eventually he warmed up when I fed him some hot dog and then we chased pigeons together,” he says. He missed that cat but they had moved shortly after Tony had finally gotten the cat to come up to him freely. The poor thing had looked so heartbroken when they were driving away or maybe Tony was just projecting.

He and T’Challa sit in silence for some time before T’Challa finally speaks again. “When I was a boy I wanted to be king _so_ badly. I had all these plans; most of them impossible or irresponsible, but it was my dream to lead my country. I’m not certain it ever occurred to me that my father had to either die for that to happen. Funny thing, that, because when I finally did become king I wanted nothing more than to take it all back,” he says quietly.

Tony thinks over his response for a moment before he says it. “I’d like to say something about your dad being proud of you or whatever but I have no idea what he was like. For all I know his definition of success doesn’t match up with what you’re doing,” it never had with Howard, “but I do know that he was a good king. Of course you grew up wanting to be king, kids wear rose-tinted glasses sometimes when it comes to parents and you probably wanted to be just like him. So obviously you wanted to be king, he was doing good things for his people; you wanted to do good things for Wakanda too. You weren’t like… subconsciously wishing him dead by doing that. You just wanted to some good like he did,” Tony says. “But if he wouldn’t be proud of what you’re doing now he’d be an idiot. Just saying.”

T’Challa’s lip quirks up, “you should have been a therapist,” he says and Tony snorts.

“Yeah, no, do you know how messed up I am? No one wants a therapist who needs more therapy than they do. And sex work is close enough. I talk to many old dudes who just miss their grandchildren. It is kind of sweet that they tell me about what Sam is doing in high school because they’ve got no one else to talk to though, even if I could care less. The other extreme is some guy asking me to do shit I didn’t even know had a name and honestly there are things I wish my eyes could unsee or my ears could unhear. Seriously, I’m all for an open mind with sex but even I’ve hit my limits. People are into weird shit,” he says. _Weird_ shit. Sometimes he and Steve got together with Bruce to kinkshame the clients and then Bruce kinkshamed them for participating. It was actually kind of fun. Everyone got sufficiently kinkshamed minus Bruce, who got kinkless shamed.

“I can imagine,” T’Challa says, “and I would prefer to never know.”

“Well honey, let me tell you a story,” Tony says and T’Challa sighs, accepting his fate as Tony babbled on about one particularly odd client.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a suicide mention and I think that's all that should need a warning, if not let me know!

 

 

Tony figures out the repulsors and everyone knows it because he spends a solid twenty minutes floating in the air while he figures out how to land. Rocket takes advantage and throws a bunch of wadded up balls of paper at him. Tony takes advantage of Rocket’s hospitality by learning control over movement, which Rocket only takes as a challenge. Groot looks horrified but his efforts to stop Rocket from being an ass fail. Tony doesn’t mind because he got a learning experience out of it and finally just cut the power to the repulsors to land, resolving to solve that issue later.

He, of course, texts Bruce every excruciating detail of the entire encounter and his payback was finally starting to pay off. Tony didn’t give a damn about time zones and Bruce was getting giant texts for like an hour straight as Tony outlined his days in the middle of the night. Finally he gave in and told Tony to wait a few hours to text if he insisted on sending every. Single. Detail. Tony waits one hour longer than usual and then sends Bruce a flurry of messages until he threatens to erase JARVIS. That shouldn’t be possible but he wasn’t about to take chances with his thesis project.

Work in the lab was basically the same as always and the hours were still long but Tony didn’t mind. He did sort of mind being kicked out of the lab because he had _ideas_ and they needed to be _tested_ and no they could not wait until morning. But he leaves anyways because it wasn’t his lab or his country and he had to be polite and stuff. He’s on his way back to his room when he runs into T’Challa again, “you know they have no idea if they should admire your work ethic or if they should assume you’re an idiot if you work that sleep deprived all the time,” he says, gesturing back towards the labs.

“I don’t need a lot of sleep,” Tony says, which is true, he’s been kept awake his whole life by the ideas, math, and improvements flying through his head at all times. Eventually you sort of got used to functioning on little or fitful sleep. Bruce had no idea how he did it but if he got less than seven hours he was just miserable to be around. Steve got it at least; he’s spent a lot of time being kept awake with various health issues so he didn’t sleep much anymore either. Sometimes they played video games all night together.

“You aren’t used to a lot of sleep,” T’Challa corrects, “have you at least made progress with your project?”

“Sure, plenty. Minus not being able to _land_ but semantics,” Tony says, shrugging. T’Challa laughs, shaking his head.

“I feel like that is a rather important detail, though I could be wrong,” he says in a teasing tone.

“Nah, I’ll just crash land everywhere. I’ll tear up a hell of a lot of lawns but that’s not _too_ bad,” he says. The rich people would be fucking pissed but he lived to piss people off, or so he keeps getting told. It was hardly his fault making people mad was so fun though, and so easy. Plus all he ever did was prove them wrong when they told him something was impossible so they should hardly get mad over something so stupid.

“The quirky thing, is that actually your personality?” T’Challa asks

“I’m wounded, really. But yeah I’m genuinely a manic pixie dream girl in real life, its definitely not as romantic as YA taught me it would be,” he says. Not that he read YA; the story lines rarely held his attention like a good paper on bioengineering did. Did that make him more of a manic pixie dream girl? Probably.

“Oh, I would have thought that you would have manufactured a personality that I responded to rather than act like yourself but I have never been in sex work, I would not consider myself an expert,” T’Challa says and something about his blunt honestly makes Tony laugh.

“Usually I do, no one really wants to be with _me_ and that’s fine, it’s easier that way. And kind of fun, I get to try random personalities on for funsies but I don’t have to commit, I like it. But you happened to respond best to my actual personality, which is weird because people hate me,” he says. The comment wasn’t supposed to be a self-depreciation thing, it was just true and that was no one’s fault. So he had a grating personality, he’s met lots of people with grating personalities that he hated, it was no big deal. The lack of friends thing kind of sucked though.

T’Challa frowns, “I would think pretending to be someone else all the time would be more difficult, not less. And I like your personality, your blunt honesty and inability to speak in irritating euphemisms in an attempt to make something ugly sound nicer is refreshing. I get rather bored of political power play and you were always a refreshing break from all that,” he says. A fantasy, he means, and Tony gets it.

The poor guy was the king of a country, and he had to take the lead after the unexpected death of his father. He probably didn’t even have time to properly grieve and process his father’s death before he got thrown into the political shark tank. It wasn’t like he had much choice but to deal with it either, Wakanda needed a leader more than he needed to grieve. T’Challa didn’t strike Tony as the kind of guy to let an entire population of people go neglected just to tend to his own needs. Even if those needs were very important to his own well-being.

“Actually it’s a great separation technique. The client wants a personal connection, or at least to feel like they have one. If I was myself all the time I’d end up getting attached to way too many people and, well, actually you know exactly how that ends. Point is if I know I’m playing their fantasies out it’s easier for me to separate myself from the situation and I find it makes me more efficient at my job. Plus it’s fun to lead a bunch of different lives, it can be really refreshing to be someone else for a couple hours, even if it’s for someone else’s benefit.” It reduced his stress levels a lot actually, and it made the stress from his PhD program a lot easier to manage. It might not be the line of work he planned on staying in but it was a peasant stop along the way. The job was easy for him, he was genuinely good at it, and it paid well. It was like the holy grail of jobs.

T’Challa considers this, “well that is certainly interesting, and it sounds exhausting. How do you keep your information straight?”

“Notes at first, but I have a really good memory so I learned to memorize the details without the notes. It’s useful in my personal life because I can actually remember people’s birthdays now. The first time I remembered to call Rhodey on his birthday he thought I was body snatched.” That had kind of sucked but Tony supposed he had that coming with how forgetful he was on any given day.

“Your friend assumed it was not you calling to wish him a happy birthday? That’s awful,” T’Challa says, looking concerned.

“Nah, it’s fine, I gave him some personal details about himself that he forgot he told me that one time we got really wasted before he went off to do military things and then he kind of wished I really did get body snatched.” He was also annoyed that Tony remembered Rhodey telling him about that giant neon crush he had on his best friend when they had both been black out drunk but he never remembered Rhodey’s birthday. Tony would have figured he was used to that by now, he always remembered the odd things; even if sometimes he missed some of the finer details, like that time he tried to feed Pepper strawberries. The fact that she was allergic was why he remembered they went together but he missed the allergic part when he was putting two and two together.

“Well… I suppose that solved your problem though I would not be very pleased that a friend of mine assumed that I was not actually me simply because I remembered something I usually forget. It happens,” T’Challa says and he’s got this odd look on his face.

“To be fair I never really remember the details,” Tony says, shrugging.

“Tony, you are an engineer, you will be making a career out of remembering the details. Plus you said that you remembered some other detail that proved that you were not replaced with a pod person, clearly you have knowledge of at least some important aspects of your friends’ lives. Just because that information is not a birth date does not mean it lacks importance. It seems rather silly to penalize you for not paying attention to details your culture assumes are important if you remember other presumably more important things,” T’Challa tells him. Well, isn’t that sweet, he still almost killed Pepper with strawberries that one time.

“I guess. I don’t know though, birthdays are basically counting down to your death and you’re supposed to be excited about it. That’s fucking morbid,” Tony says, wrinkling his nose.

“I believe the point is to celebrate life lived, not days until death,” T’Challa says but he looks like he’s trying to figure out if maybe he missed out on some important cultural detail or something and that was sweet.

“Same thing,” Tony points out, “which I think is a little bit messed up. Plus I can’t remember my own birthday, why the hell would I memorize everyone else’s? And is it _really_ that important to remember the day you were born on? Does that really prove anything? Because I could memorize a crap ton of birthdates and that doesn’t mean I know anything about a person, so I have no clue why everyone is so hung up on that,” he says. The amount of flack he got his whole life for forgetting birthdays was just ridiculous, he could remember random details of conversations he’s had with people years ago but everyone paid attention to his not remembering _dates_. He had no clue that people even found those things so important considering his family never remembered his birthday, he just assumed it was normal until he started going to school and became confused by the culture of birthdays. He hadn’t caught on until recently and that was only because small details like that suddenly became important.

“You are not wrong. I have never understood either, and I am terrible at remembering dates because I find them unimportant in most contexts. However I have been reliably informed that they are very important and that I must remember them,” T’Challa says, sounding pained.

“Welcome to club Why Do Those Things Matter Okay Yell at me For Not Remembering Like That Will Help. It sucks here. And… and sorry, by the way, for snapping on you the last time I saw you. Well, technically second last time but you get the point,” Tony says awkwardly, waving a hand around to take the attention away from his weirdness.

“There is no need to apologize, in fact I am the one that owes you an apology. I had no business sticking my nose where it did not belong and you were right. I do not know you and I should not pretend to, my feelings for you… they were unfair and I apologize for that,” T’Challa says. Tony wonders if he missed the part where Tony all but admitted to also having feelings a few minutes ago when he said that T’Challa knew exactly how getting too attached to the client went. Probably, Tony would have if the situations were reversed, hell, if T’Challa weren’t so blunt he probably would have missed it _now_.

“You were only trying to help, there isn’t anything wrong with that,” Tony says. And all he was trying to do was help; there was no need for Tony to snap at him because he was disappointed in himself.

“No,” T’Challa agrees, “but it was not my trying to help that was the problem. It was my reasoning, I was reaching out to you for selfish reasons and that is not help. So I apologize for that,” he says.

“Damn,” Tony says, shaking his head, “Prince Charming’s got nothing on you.”

*

Steve and Bruce got along _way_ too well. Bruce was sharing his McDonald’s horror stories while Steve was absolutely outraged with the way these people acted.

“He told you that you must be stupid and must not have graduated high school! What an asshole,” Steve says passionately, offended deeply on Bruce’s behalf.

“I know right. So I say ‘sir, I’m genius and I go to MIT’ and that guy had the _balls_ to ask why I messed up the math if I was so smart. So I said ‘well, sir, I have an extreme anxiety disorder and when people scream at me that I’m the scum the earth it doesn’t really matter how smart I am, I feel like anyone would mess up under such harsh conditions let alone someone who’s suicidal’. That guy left real fucking quick and everyone else in line gave me good tips because apparently a dollar might make me less likely to off myself. I still appreciate the sentiment though, even if that isn’t exactly how things work,” Bruce says.

“You should just work for Sam,” Tony tells him.

“I’m thinking about it, you get a good wage, people buy you cool stuff, you can actually afford groceries. Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me, but I don’t Betty would go for it,” he says and Tony laughs.

“You never know, she seems pretty supportive, she might,” he says. He doubted it, this wasn’t exactly the kind of job people wanted their significant others in even if Tony found the reasons around that flimsy. But then he was looking at it from the outside in rather than the inside out; of course he wouldn’t have a problem dating someone who was an escort. It was just a job, regardless of how ‘different’ said job would be by normative standards, the point was still to go and make money. Besides, most of the clients were horrible and no one would want to leave their significant other for them, and the clients certainly wouldn’t leave their significant others for the hooker. Most of the guys Tony saw were high up in the food chain, that would be career suicide.

“Maybe. It has to be better than McDonalds,” Bruce says, looking off into the distance like he’s seen some shit. Too be fair with all the crazy stories that Tony has heard Bruce actually _has_ seen some shit. Sometimes literally.

“I would say it’s better than being degraded on a regular basis by an ungrateful and undeserving public. And some people are into humiliation so you get to humiliate them, one time I made this guy clean the toilet with his tongue. It was surprisingly satisfying,” Steve says.

“That… is not sanitary,” Bruce says, wrinkling his nose.

“I made sure it was clean first, Jesus, I don’t want to kill the guy. Pretty sure he was actually a little upset with that but I am not going to be held accountable when he eats literal shit and gets sick. So cleaning was a must. And that definitely is not the most disgusting I’ve done but hey, I get paid well, more extras so who am I to judge when I’m bringing home some serious cash,” he says, grinning.

“I do not even want to know and if it involves scat you leave that alone, I never want to know. That is a hard no for me,” Tony says, shuddering.

“What the hell is ‘scat’? Like… the singing…” Bruce says slowly, knowing that they were not talking about but clearly hoping it was.

“We mean shit, otherwise known as toilet play,” Steve says bluntly.

Bruce looks horrified, “oh my god no, I can never do that, I lied about wanting to take up your job you people are _saints_.”

“You clean public bathrooms, is that really any less gross? Besides, you can opt out of that you know, and people’s interest in things that don’t fall into the ‘normal’ category makes me good money so I’m not about to kinkshame.” Steve shrugs, completely unrepentant and Tony decides that Steve is not to be trifled with.

“I guess you have a point. This one time I was cleaning the bathrooms at work and this woman came in and she said she really had to go, which is no big deal I let her go ahead. Well she leaves a few minutes later and the bathroom _reeks_ but you know what, I have dropped some very smelly turds in my time so that was fine. But then I noticed the shitty underwear sitting on the table for me, staring me dead in the eye like it knew I was the only one left to clean it up. I was not pleased,” Bruce says, nose wrinkled in annoyance or maybe he was just remembering the smell.

“That is _disgusting_ ,” Steve says, face matching his words and tone.

“Says the guy who just had a conversation about scat, which apparently isn’t singing in the bedroom,” Bruce says, looking confused.

“You don’t leave shitty anything anywhere for an unsuspecting person to come across unless it was previously negotiated. That woman deserves a ban from all public bathrooms for doing that to you. She could have at least tried to stick it in one of those tampon things,” he says.

“Well this is all well and good but you two have officially killed my appetite,” Tony tells them. Of course once he sees the pizza he’s basically diving on it but still.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothin against dog people or dogs, they're neato too.
> 
> Also, second last chapter! I stuck to making it short!

“Guess who’s got a PhD?” Tony says, slamming his way into the lab loudly.

Bruce whirls around, “me!” he yells back.

“Hell yeah, we’re doctors, we can brag now!” Tony says excitedly. Bruce jumps into his arms and he catches him, barely, and Tony is so excited he doesn’t even think its weird that he was holding a grown man in his arms.

“You should start that company!” Bruce says, catching onto Tony’s enthusiasm quickly and fueling it with his own.

“Nah, it’ll never work,” Tony says. And he was mostly okay with that so long as he never, ever had to work with Justin Hammer.

“You’re a doctor, you can do anything!” Bruce says with a surprising amount of enthusiasm in his tone.

“Yeah, I _can_ do anything,” Tony says confidently.

“No you can’t, I don’t know what you’re thinking of doing but you need to stop it,” a new voice says. Tony drops Bruce, not caring that he almost falls on his ass, because Rhodey was standing in the doorway to the lab and he hasn’t seen Rhodey for _months_. Tony all but throws himself at him and Rhodey probably did find it a little weird that he was holding a grown man in his arms.

*

Like all good things Stark the company starts off as a joke but people knew his name, they’ve been reading his papers for years. It didn’t take long to land a multimillion-dollar contract, and when that went well the money came pouring in and Tony went from being a dirt-poor hooker to a multimillionaire inventor. He hires Pepper to keep him from doing something stupid and thankfully she accepts his offer.

Sam was pissed when he quit but wished him good luck. Tony was sad to go but he didn’t have time for the job anymore.

*

T’Challa doesn’t expect to find Tony’s face on the cover of Forbes but out of curiosity he picks the magazine up. Finding out Tony was now a millionaire was more surprising than finding him on the cover of Forbes. He keeps up with news of Tony after that and he tells himself it is not pining, even if the Dora Milaje obviously disagree.

*

The suit was a bet that Tony had intended to win from the beginning but he didn’t expect Rhodey to show up on his doorstep not long after completion to tell him the fucking military was intent on confiscating it. Tony laughs in Rhodey’s face and thankfully he takes it well, knowing that Tony was laughing at the military, not him personally. He was in the process of building himself a swanky new pad in Malibu, and one in New York though that doubled as the office, but not having a lab was out of the question. Thankfully Bruce knew a guy who knew a guy and he had found a suitable space for his research and Bruce’s, fully funded of course.

Rhodey watches as he flies away, doing nothing because he’s learned by now that telling Tony what to do never really went well.

*

Admittedly Tony’s plan was fucking stupid, but he doesn’t realize that until he’s dodging Wakandan weapons being shot at him. Thankfully he was good at doing all kinds of illegal things on the fly, literally and metaphorically in this case. Look at what he did to Ross; guy lost his job after Tony published a few select things from his computer. He couldn’t believe the military picked the guy back up though and that was why they were never going to get their hands on Tony’s suit.

Regardless, hacking Sam’s systems and finding T’Challa’s number wasn’t difficult despite the impressive security measures. Granted that didn’t mean T’Challa would _pick up_ but Tony hadn’t thought of that until the phone was ringing. Luck, however, was on his side, “please do not tell me that is you flying around in Wakandan airspace,” T’Challa says in place of an actual greeting.

“Ugh, sorry to disappoint? I have a weapon I need to hide Wakanda or else the U.S government is going to get ahold of it and I know what you guys did to the Russians when they tried to invade. Seriously, you took out and entire _fleet_ of Black Widows and they’re supposed to be the most highly trained-”

“Where is the weapon?” T’Challa asks.

“I’m uh, currently wearing it. So if you could kindly call your people off- holy shit that almost hit me! Oh shit, you guys are adjusting, Wakanda does not fuck around. The suit that I was working on is kind of a thing and _Jesus_ what the hell even _was_ that- please get them to stop trying to murder me!” T’Challa, thankfully, is able to save his ass and he’s instructed by one very irritated sounding Dora Milaje to land somewhere presumably very far away from T’Challa.

He stays very still while he instructs the Dora Milaje how to remove the suit manually, figuring all was well. Today his ideas were not very good and he probably should have seen it coming when the Dora Milaje knock him out.

When he wakes up T’Challa is looking down at him. It would have been kind of sweet if T’Challa leaning forward wasn’t accompanied but a dozen Dora Milaje also leaning forward, eyeing Tony suspiciously. “Okay, so I might have deserve this,” he says and he goes to scratch his head only to find hi hand handcuffed to the hospital bed, “were the cuffs strictly necessary?” Judging from the glares he got from T’Challa’s guards that answer was a yes.

“Are you aware of how many American, Wankandan, and international laws you have broken?” T’Challa asks.

“Nope. Can I have some water, I’m fucking parched,” he says flippantly. T’Challa pinches his nose but thankfully none of the Dora Milaje act on the obvious urge they had to beat the hell out of him.

“You could have died,” T’Challa says.

“But I didn’t. Seriously though, I am actually really thirsty, flying from the U.S to Wakanda and then spending an hour dodging weapons will do that to a guy.”

“You are an imbecile,” some nameless Dora Milaje tells him.

“Guilty as charged, that does not solve the thirst problem,” he says in a chipper tone.

“You are far more of an asshole than I thought. How did you get into the country?” T’Challa asks.

“I flew. Took me four hours though, it only should have taken three so something’s got to be adjusted somewhere. And of course I’m an asshole, the lovable kind of course,” he says, grinning.

“That is debatable,” the same Dora Milaje that commented before says.

“I am inclined to agree. There are systems in place to keep people out of our airspace and you know it Tony, so how did you get in?” T’Challa asks. Tony spends the next hour in a grueling interrogation describing in excruciating detail how, exactly, he managed not to die. Eventually he gives up and tells them to get the information from the suit, which the Dora Milaje were pleased with. Something to back his story up was apparently a good thing and Tony couldn’t help but agree, giving out information in detail was tedious.

*

“Let me get this straight, you made some weapon that the U.S government wanted and then you thought it was a good idea to fly to Wakanda to drop said weapon off there with no warning and _then_ you spent the night in a Wakandan prison?” Steve asks, running out of breath towards the end of that. Bruce looks like he’s trying to figure out how that could have gone with little success.

“Yep. Wakandan jails are fucking nice too; there was so much space! And the beds don’t suck! All in all it wasn’t that bad, I’d do it again,” he says.

“Do not do that again, Tony, you probably scared the whole country half to death pulling a stunt like that. Why the hell would you do that?” Bruce asks.

“I had twelve hours and it took me four to get there, I didn’t have time to send an email or whatever. Do you two want the U.S government to have access to a weapon like that?” he asks. It was for the greater good, really, which T’Challa agreed with after he was done sulking about Tony hacking his country’s systems. To be fair he probably wouldn’t have managed if he hadn’t had previous experience with it when he was there. Hell, if it wasn’t for Bruce’s love of obscure science he probably wouldn’t have recognized where the Wakandans got the basis for their tech, it wasn’t like anything currently on the market. The world would shit if they saw what Wakanda has accomplished. Plus, even if T’Challa hadn’t wanted to admit it, Tony was in kind of a bind for time so niceties were a little useless.

And, of course, T’Challa agreed to house Tony’s weapon after he promised not to go making anymore possible weapons of mass destruction. He had agreed but only because he liked T’Challa and he let Tony pet his cat.

“You’re an idiot,” Bruce tells him and Tony shrugs, accepting his fate.

*

“Oh my god,” Steve says, sitting up from his lounging position on Tony’s swanky new couch. He blew so much money he didn’t even want to think about it but his business was growing faster than anything of its kind ever has. His products were genuinely amazing and they were cheap to produce, partially because he only had so much money to make things when he was in grad school and he was _not_ sacrificing quality, so everyone wanted in on it. Hammer’s company was slowly tanking as Tony stole all his customers and Tony couldn’t help but feel a little victorious about that. He was never going to forgive Hammer for that one time he stole a pepperoni off his pizza when they went to that conference together. And his products were shit.

“What?” Tony asks, digging through the fridge for something edible. It was weird, having a fridge so full; he’s never had that. He kind of liked it though, at least until something went bad and then he felt a bit wasteful. He’s taken to feeding Steve too and his irritating best friend Binky was not happy about it. Binky didn’t approve of Tony but thankfully for him Steve’s reaction to being told what to do was the same as his own. So naturally Steve started hanging out with Tony more just to piss Binky off and Tony approved whole-heartedly. Plus he missed having friends around this much. He had Pepper back now but they did far more working than anything, fun and they were a great business team. Pepper had admitted over drinks not long ago that she took the job as a way to support him not thinking that it’d work out, but it turns out that they’re freakishly efficient together. Her ability to read the fine print and his ability to twist just about anything to suit his needs made them terrifying business opponents and people were taking notice.

“Buzzfeed just posted this article called ‘Tony Stark and T’Challa King of Wakanda are obviously Soulmates and Here’s Why’. That is _so_ weird,” he says, clearly scrolling through the article.

“Well don’t leave me hanging, Rogers, how come Buzzfeed thinks T’Challa is my one and only?” he asks. He was curious about what the comment section said too but he knew if he waited long enough Steve would read it and reiterate it all back anyways. There was bound to be a cesspool of people in there whining about gayness and royal heirs.

“You’re both cat people, you both have an odd sense of humor, you’d make pretty babies even if you can’t technically reproduce and wow that mashup of your faces _is_ cute. Seriously, you and T’Challa would have some cute babies. You also both like making snarky comments at people you think are stupid, and neither of you like rules, but T’Challa’s more elegant about it. Oh my god there’s a gif of someone doing an interview with him asking if he’s lonely without a queen and his response is ‘no, I have a cat’ and then he _pulls a fucking cat out of his bag_. You would so do that too, you guys are meant to be,” Steve tells him, grinning at his custom StarkPhone, also courtesy of Tony. Only the best for his friends.

All those Hallmark things told him he couldn’t buy friendship but so far he was doing a damn good job of it. Clearly they were doing it wrong. “You’re telling me that after disapproving _now_ you’re cool with our non-relationship because Buzzfeed blended our faces and we came out cute?” Tony asks.

“Uh, yeah, don’t date the customers is common sense. But now you’re both off doing other things so it’d be… well it’s still weird but at least it’s not some weird situation where he’s buying your relationship. That is not the way to start a good relationship,” Steve says in that matter-of-fact tone he got when he was about to be a self-righteous dick.

“I’m buying my relationship with you right now and honestly, ten out of ten, I have never had this many friends. I highly recommend,” he says.

Steve looks downright horrified, “oh my god, I’m not friends with you because you buy me things! I am no longer accepting gifts from you,” he says.

“Cool, give me the phone back,” he says.

Steve clutches his phone to his chest, “I already accepted this one, it’s rude to give it back.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Seriously though, if I didn’t like you I wouldn’t be here,” Steve says earnestly.

“You know what, coming from you I actually believe that. You’re too much of a self-righteous, patience-less asshat to be friends with someone you don’t like. I don’t think you’d be able to put up with them for long.” And Bruce, he was weird as hell, like the kind of weird only a mother could love so Tony believed that he actually stuck around out of enjoyment of some kind. Or you know, only Betty loved him and he needed a wider friend group than his girlfriend.

“I’m flattered and insulted?” Steve says, voice going up at the end like it was a question instead of a statement.

“Welcome to my world with you all. The. Time.”

*

The staff was eyeing the cat suspiciously but none of them were moving towards it. Tony, of course, recognized the cat right away and figured they were all to scared to piss off the King of Wakanda so Tony goes and scoops the cat up for them. “Uh, sir-” some poor bellboy says and Tony beats feet with the cat before he’s roped into an awkward conversation.

He realizes too late he has no fucking clue where T’Challa’s room was so now he had this cat and no where to go with it. He ends up taking Princess Leia back to his own room until he figured out where T’Challa was. “Alright kitty, don’t pee on anything,” he tells the cat. Princess Leia plops her butt down on Tony’s pillow and Tony accepts that as a promise to not have to clean up cat pee so he doesn’t leave it for some poor hotel maid. He’s had that job, the customers were _horrible_. No matter how rich he got he was not going to be _that guy_.

Before he dealt with the cat, though, he needed to shower the business grime off of himself. The last thing he expects for someone to start pounding on his door while he’s singing Back in Black in the shower and having a good time but the person doesn’t go away so Tony exits the shower to deal with it. “Jesus, calm down, room service is pushy these days,” he yells, throwing a towel around his waist to spare the person an eye full. Princess Leia has migrated to his suitcase and made herself at home on one of his Gucci suits. It was probably coated in cat hair now.

“What is the damn proble- oh,” Tony says intelligently when he finds T’Challa behind the door.

“They didn’t tell me it was you,” he says. He looks annoyed and it takes Tony a second to realize he was probably trying to locate his escaped feline.

“Yeah, your cat is in my Gucci. The staff looked so freaked out so I picked her up and brought her back here when I realized I had no idea which room you were in. I was gunna look it up later but you found me soo,” Tony trails off awkwardly, waving a hand around. God, he was wet and mostly naked. Well this was horrible.

“Do you make rash, impulsive, and usually stupid decisions frequently?” T’Challa asks. His tone is teasing though so he wasn’t mad, thank god.

“It’s about ninety percent of my personality,” Tony admits.

T’Challa smiles, shaking his head, “how did you become one of America’s most successful business owners overnight?” he asks.

“Oh, now those reckless, impulsive, and not at all stupid decisions are completely different. They’re based on math, stock trajectories, things that involve numbers. I’m good with numbers and predictions involved with them, it’s why people aren’t put off by my personality- it doesn’t affect my results. And my products are awesome,” he says proudly. Of course they were, he made them.

“Clearly. Your success is more than impressive, even you currently look like a drown rat,” T’Challa says.

“You wound me. Come get your cat,” Tony says, stepping aside so T’Challa could fetch his feline. Princess Leia has her leg straight up in the air and her face buried in her fluffy butt, grooming on Tony’s overpriced jacket. Total _asshole_. Tony loved her.

“Thank you for taking care of her,” T’Challa says, scooping up his wayward feline much to her annoyance.

“I didn’t really do anything, I sort of tossed her on the bed and showered and then you showed up. She sort of made herself at home on my expensive suits,” Tony says.

“I still appreciate you removing her from the lobby. What moron lets a cat roam around in a lobby? I understand they were likely afraid of incurring my wrath but for the safety of the cat she should have been removed. She has a habit of attacking ankles and Americans do not understand cats, I would not want some idiot to yell at her for being a cat,” he says, clutching the cat tightly to his chest. Princess Leia takes this terribly and wiggles free, perching herself on T’Challa’s shoulder and sniffing his hair.

“Oh man. I get that. And she’s so cute, who could yell at such a pretty face?” Tony says, cooing at the cat.

“A surprising amount of people who are upset that the cat, after hours of travel, is upset and does not want to be touched. One person called her vicious! She is not vicious; she was simply annoyed and tired after so much travel, like anyone else would be. I would leave her at home but she gets so stressed with me gone that she looses hair,” T’Challa laments, gently brushing his hand over his cats very full body of hair. Clearly it all grew back.

“People do not understand cats, and I mean dogs are cool but they’re highly overrated,” Tony says. He has had experience with exactly three dogs, one attacked him, one chewed up his shoes, and the last one was a beast of a dog that was awesome and he growled at Howard. Best. Dog. _Ever_. Not one cat he has ever met has tried to chew his face off, one ate his homework and that had been awkward, but they also hated Howard and that’s what made Tony’s choice. That, and cats were cute as hell.

“I dislike dogs. They are large and slimy or they are small and yappy. I cannot understand how your people like dogs. They are cute in pictures and that is it. They are even elegant,” T’Challa says, nose in the air.

“Cats might look elegant on the outside but they do hit walls when running at top speeds so I mean they have their limits. And aren’t cats important in Wakanda? I remember some stuff from that cultural sensitivity training you had us do for the tech thing but all I can remember is that one dude petting a fucking _panther_. A _jungle cat_ T’Challa, please do not pet jungle cats, that’s dangerous,” he says. He kept waiting for the panther to eat that dude’s head off but it didn’t, it basically just acted like a giant housecat. Tony still didn’t trust it.

“Yes, our gods take the form of cats. Because they’re elegant, even when they’re hitting walls at top speeds. And we do not pet panthers on a regular basis; do not tell people that I have already had to dispel enough rumors about our panther petting ways. Panthers happen to represent Bast and we respect them, like we _should_ regardless of Bast taking the shape of a panther. Regardless, we are not noble savages who tame panthers, such a thing is absurd,” T’Challa says, irritated.

“Which idiot spread the panther petting rumor?” Tony asks, curious about who took an out of context clip and made it the entirety of Wakandan culture.

“The irritating one. And not the one with the very tall and strange friend, he is mostly harmless so long as you are not in the blast zone. His name is legally Rocket by the way, and his last name is Raccoon. Who would do that to their child? Regardless, the other one, the overly arrogant one,” he says.

“Oh, the one stuck in his ‘my daddy will here about this’ phase? Khakis, gotcha. Total dick and he was not smart enough to be that arrogant. _I’m_ smart enough to be that arrogant, he’s mediocre. I have _got_ to add Rocket Raccoon on Facebook though, could you imagine?” _Rocket Raccoon_. And Tony thought he was unlucky with Anthony Edward, that was leagues better than Rocket. His parents were either potheads or hippies. Or potheads _and_ hippies.

“You flew a highly weaponized and surprisingly stylized suit into a foreign country with no notice and nearly got shot out of the sky. You then kidnapped my cat, which is admittedly better than the staff not doing anything, but you still need impulse control,” T’Challa tells him.

“But where’s the fun in that? We should do something crazy,” he says excitedly, coming up with a half a dozen ideas immediately.

“Tony, I have had an entire conversation with you in which I mostly ignored that you are wet and naked, that would fall under my definition of crazy. I vote we tone it down and go on a date,” T’Challa says.

Tony gasps, “I know a cat café!” he says.

T’Challa’s eyes go comically wide, “they have those, we must go now.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go, a fluffy lil end chapter that sort of points to where they ended up.

“My favorite thing about Wakanda is all the cats,” Tony says as another cat wanders up looking to be pet. The cats in America just run away when he tries to pet them, and to be fair he didn’t blame them. But Wakanda was a country of cat people and as a result all the cats were super friendly and wandered up to pretty much anyone. Actually from what T’Challa said if the cats _didn’t_ like you no one else did because they were under the impression the cats sensed something about the person that they couldn’t.

“I am glad you are a cat person. I do not know what I would have done if you were not,” T’Challa says.

“I don’t think it’s possible to be accepted in Wakanda if you don’t at least think cats are cute. I mean people give me the side eye now and the cats love me,” Tony says. Despite T’Chaka and now T’Challa trying to open the country up to the world the citizens were skeptical. After all the political disasters in the last year Tony didn’t really blame them for being leery of outsiders.

“It would not, people are already skeptical of you, they would outright reject you if the cats did not like you. I largely suspect no one has said anything against you because the cats are very attached; obviously Bast has given her blessing,” T’Challa says.

“Aww, how sweet. Seriously though, I’m really going to miss all these cats back home,” he says. Rhodey thought he was nuts because of all the cat pictures Tony has been sending him. Bruce has silently accepted his fate, Steve was generally excited about the cats but he was an animal person in general, and Pepper loved cats almost as much as he did. Apparently Binky was jealous of all the cats, or so Steve said, so Tony made sure to send twice as many pictures to make the guy even more jealous. T’Challa didn’t really understand Tony’s weird competition with Bucky and to be honest neither did Tony, but he knew he was going to win. _Obviously_.

“Get stuck with a backwards country of dog lovers,” T’Challa says with distaste. “Though you are welcome back any time so long as you do not try and drop another weapon in our lap with no warning.”

“Okay but like I had no choice. And you should have _seen_ Ross’ face when he showed up to collect this suit and he didn’t find any evidence it existed. The military even got a warrant to check my computer files, which didn’t give them anything, obviously. Did they seriously think I was stupid enough to leave evidence for them to find?” He was offended that the military assumed he was dumb enough to leave them something to find. Clearly he was more intelligent than that, thanks.

T’Challa just shakes his head and smiles.

*

“The internet is losing its shit over you and T’Challa,” Steve tells him. He and Bruce had decided that Googling the situation was necessary for some reason but Tony couldn’t complain, some of the reactions were hilarious.

“Lovely, any hint of how we met?” he asks and Steve knows what he means. They had their story, of course, and the paperwork backed it up if anyone looked. But if someone knew what they were looking for it probably wouldn’t take long to link both him and T’Challa back to his old job. In an ideal world Tony wouldn’t give a damn, hell if it wasn’t for T’Challa he wouldn’t give a damn _now_. But he wasn’t going to ruin T’Challa’s chance at integrating his country into the rest of the world just because he was annoyed that people had a pointless vendetta against sex work.

Instead he made sure to mention how pro sex work he was as much as he could. Unfortunately for him everyone assumed that was because he was a misogynistic pig instead of someone who genuinely cared about sex workers and boy did _that_ annoy him. The least they could do was point out _actual_ misogyny on his part, he was sure he wasn’t lacking for it. But no, apparently being pro sex work made him a bad person. Whatever. Steve had been weirdly proud with the stance though and Steve was big into social issues so he figured that he was doing something right, even if the media disagreed.

“Nope. Everyone thinks it’s cute that you met through sharing your genius or whatever. And that you’re both cat people, there’s a lot of pictures of you and T’Challa with cats,” Steve tells him.

Bruce snickers, “T’Challa’s face when he meets people that don’t like cats is also priceless. Look how suspicious he looks,” he says, turning the StarkPad so Tony could see it. Tony knew he the look, he made the same face when people suggested Brock Rumlow would make a good president. Or when people asked if Wakanda was poor. Or basically whenever someone said something T’Challa found stupid. Tony wasn’t sure which he found funnier, the memes people have made out of his reactions to things or the memes of T’Challa’s reactions to things.

“Okay but Tony’s face when people ask stupid questions is great, like look at this,” Steve says, turning the StarkPad back around to show Bruce some picture.

“Of wow, full face eye roll. I’ve only ever seen Justin Hammer achieve that look. What the hell did that person ask?” Bruce is looking at the screen with a raised eyebrow and curiosity.

“Anything about kids,” Tony supplies. God, he didn’t think the world was so concerned with Wakanda’s royalty but suddenly he and T’Challa both have dongs and everyone thought it was their place to be concerned for Wakanda. T’Challa didn’t take long to get annoyed of this and finally told people not to assume Wakanda’s royal system was as narrow as the one they were familiar with. No one, including Tony, knew what that meant but the confusion on the reporter’s face was hilarious. If you couldn’t complain about an inability to create royal babies how else were you supposed to be a subtle homophobe?

“You don’t want kids?” Bruce asks, surprised.

“Fuck no. Daddy Dearest was a terrible father and the last think my potential spawn needs to deal with is the fallout of that,” he says honestly. It was for the best really, he was sure to be a horrible father anyways. He knew what it was like to have a father who cared about anything but him; he wouldn’t ever wish that on someone.

“Oh. Well for the record I think you’d be a good dad, I’ve seen you with kids. They love you,” Bruce says. Yeah, but being good with kids for a few moments at a time didn’t mean you’d be a good parent. He knew that well too, Howard was _great_ with other people’s kids. Tony wasn’t risking being that person, not with some poor kid’s life on the line.

“I’ve never understood the appeal of kids. They’re messy and get snot everywhere,” Steve says, thankfully saving Tony’s ass from that.

“I agree,” Tony says. Poor Bruce, he looks so confused about how someone could dislike kids.

*

T’Challa had expected the media circus to pass after a few weeks of his relationship with Tony going public but it had yet to fade. His own people were annoyed with it, confused as to how something as unimportant as the love life of one man could overshadow elections. Especially when the remaining candidates were… worrisome. He would probably never understand American culture; he hadn’t even gotten ahold of English culture when he had gone to Oxford. Tony had adjusted at least somewhat well to Wakandan culture if for no other reason than enjoying the cats.

“Buzzfeed thinks they got us together,” Tony tells him, a wide smile on his face.

“What is a ‘buzzfeed’?” he asks, almost frightened to know what the answer was.

“Joke site basically,” Tony answers, “and they regret it. Apparently we’re an overload of cute. Which I mean it’s true, I’m adorable and like I guess you’re okay,” Tony says.

He shakes his head, sitting down beside Tony. Tony naturally shifts so he’s sitting closer to him, curling into his side. He smiles, pleased that Tony had this much trust in him at all. Unfortunately a lifetime worth of abuse and neglect gave him crippling trust issues and he had a habit of pushing people close to him away, which T’Challa supposes he’s already experienced. But Tony’s friends had still felt the need to forewarn him about the habit. “I suppose you are cute. Leia is cuter, though,” he says.

Tony tilts his head up to look at him, “you can’t compare me to cats! I’ll never win! Okay, except for this _really_ ugly Persian one of my childhood friends owned. That thing looked like it hit a brick wall going sixty only it’s face moved instead of the wall, seriously, that cat was _hideous_. So I’m cuter than that one but like otherwise that comparison is unfair,” Tony tells him.

“I had a childhood friend with an ugly Persian too. That cat is still alive and he is convinced that it is immortal.” T’Challa was starting to wonder too, the cat was twenty-five.

“Aww, we have similar life experiences, clearly we were meant to be,” Tony says, grinning.

“Of course we are meant to be,” he says, kissing the top of Tony’s head, “the cats like you.”


End file.
